Okay y'all.  I'm not a carpet cleaner by any means nor do I have a business doing it.  I would like to have one, but I can't come up with the money to purchase equipment and start one, nor can I find the financial support to do so  :)  Personally, I think I would be one of the best because I research before I act, and I am also a perfectionist.  Some people call it anal retentive 

Anyway, my question.  When cleaning, do you rinse the carpet with hot water alone, or is it supposed to be mixed with a diluted solution from the TM?  Also, what temp of water is "too hot".  I've seen some machines get up to 250 degrees and acting as "hot water extraction."  But the cleaners I've seen around here, have nooooo steam out the wand, just water.

The reason I ask is this.  I was a cleaning apprentice for maybe 2 jobs.  When I assisted this person who I thought was supposed to know so much, I was disappointed in the results.  After letting the floors dry (which were my own floors), they seemed very tacky and stiff.  The only solution I could come up with, was the soap or chemicals.  Well, this was also a bad experience in that one of my rooms took over 8 hours to completely dry because the person "teaching" me said that it needed to be agitated with a rotary machine which also dumped large amounts of water/chemical mix into the carpet.  There was sooooo much water that the Prochem 100A had no where near the power to suck it all up.  Needless to say, I don't know if what was there, wicked back and made the carpet dirty again in no time, or if the tackiness of the carpet causes it to grab any dirt tracked in.

So, there's the first bad experience.

2nd is this.  I just closed on a house today.  My first home.  I had the carpets cleaned by another company and when I went in, same crap.  Tacky floors, and stiff brissles.  I was pissed, because I know what will happen.  Second of all, this is supposed to be a reputable company; however, they don't pre-vac, they don't groom, they don't move furniture (in fact if none of this in done prior to their arrival, they leave) and their wand strokes to me are, well, lets say mediocre.

So, sorry for the long explanation.  However, from reading, I was kind of under the assumption that your pre-spray is to encapsulate the soil in the carpet, then when you wand it, you're "rinsing" the floor, just as you would a car.  Last I checked, people don't wash cars by having a final rinse of soapy water, why would you with a carpet?  I would think you just use the hot water with no solution in the line to rinse and recover the soap or pre-treat that you just put down.

Thanks for your time.

Another choice is to use DFC Heavy Duty as your prespray  with DFC 105 as your rinse. In this case you are using NO SOAP what-so-ever! Ergo---no residue :)