I hear what you are saying Mardie, I have been to a few carpet cleaning conventions, the last one was with Joe Polish a while back. I talked to many chemical sales reps and a couple chemists about temperature and cleaning ability and it seems in the carpet cleaning industry they all say the same thing, the hotter the water the better the chemicals clean and that kind of makes sense. I asked them for some literature so I could read about it but they did not have any and could not refer me to anything to further my reading on the topic.
In the pressure washing industry several people I have talked to say to keep the temps below 180, preferably 160 degrees because over that temp the surfactants break down and then become useless. I also asked these guys about literature so I can read more about the surfactants breaking down at certain temperatures but they also could not present any literature to further my reading.
So, it seems both industries have their information or theories or maybe it has been proven but nobody can come up with any kind of documentation to show who is correct. This is not a contest to see who is right, I would like to know for myself if the chemicals do break down at certain temperatures or if they don't so that i know and use that to help my business.
In the years since I have met some very intelligent guys that know a lot about chemicals and I never think to ask them about the temperature issue. I will see if I can get Andy Vickers to come here and talk some as he is one of the smartest guys I know in many aspects of pressure washing, chemicals especially but also equipment, engineering, flow, etc.....
This reminds me of a funny little man that swears that you need over 300 degrees to clean concrete properly and clean the oil stains. He brought his rig to a Las Vegas event and some of us went out to the Vegas DMV in the evening when it was 65 degrees outside and tried popping gum. He swore that over 250 degrees the gum just "vaporized" when surface cleaning and they hardly ever had to do any gum removal by gun. Well his rig did get to 315 degrees when it was 65 degrees outside so do the math on that heat rise, it was impressive.
The gum at the DMV in Las Vegas was like it is here in South Texas when it has sat in the sun baking for years, it is almost petrified. Even with 315 degrees the gum did not come up any faster than Tony Shelton's Landa rig that was 6gpm and hit about 180 degrees if I remember correctly with them verifying this with a laser temp gun.
During the event in the daytime several guys got to try this impressive rig to clean and pop gum and many mentioned that the gum was not "vaporizing" at 250, 280, 300 or even 315 degrees and it was not coming up any faster than when using Tony's Landa rig at about 180 degrees.
So, there are many different opinions on heat, chemistry, gum and other things out there that unless you experience it for yourself, it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong.
I will try to get Andy to post his comments and see what he has to say about the hot water temps needed for cleaning.