Product Overview This special tape will change colour and indicate pH of any water-based solution. Use for indicating pH of spot on carpet by wetting and quickly pressing tape onto the spot. A necessity for measuring the pH of your cleaning solutions. The tape is supplied in a dispenser with a serrated stainless cut-off lip and a matching colour chart. You tear off a short strip, dip it, remove it at once and read the colour against the chart immediately. Range and Accuracy pH range 0.0 to 13.0 Resolution Whole pH units Accuracy Plus or minus 0.5 pH unit Format Dispenser with colour chart CCW SKU AX20 Wide-range paper is the right tool for confirming that a solution is roughly where you expect it — that your prespray is alkaline, that your rinse is acidic, that a residue has been neutralised. It is not the right tool for distinguishing pH 8.2 from pH 8.6. If you need that resolution you need a meter or a short-range paper. Why pH Matters on the Job Two reasons, and the second one costs more money than the first. Fibre safety. Wool and other protein fibres are damaged by high alkalinity. Knowing what your working solution actually measures — not what the label says at full strength — is how you avoid that. Resoiling. Alkaline residue left in a carpet is sticky and attracts soil, which is why a job can look worse three weeks later than it did before it was cleaned. Checking the pH of the extracted water towards the end of a job tells you whether you have rinsed the chemistry out or just moved it around. Known Limitations The manufacturer is explicit about two situations where pH paper will mislead you, and both come up in this trade. Salt solutions. Sodium chloride holds back the indicator dyes and the reading will not be reliable. That matters where you are dealing with salt-based de-icer or traffic-lane residues, or saline-contaminated water losses. Weakly buffered water. Tap water and rain water are dilute and weakly buffered, and standard pH papers do not read them well. The manufacturer makes a separate low-ion paper for that purpose. If you are testing rinse water rather than a working solution, be aware the reading is less trustworthy. Storage Store dry and out of sunlight. The shelf life is printed on the colour chart — check it, because a chart that has faded or a tape that has been left in a hot van will read wrong and give you false confidence. Frequently Asked Questions How many tests will a dispenser give me? Enough for routine use over a long period, but we are not going to print a figure we cannot verify for the exact pack we ship. Contact us and we will confirm what is in the dispenser currently in stock. Can I test carpet directly? You can wet the area and press the tape onto it, as above. Be aware that reading a damp fibre surface is less controlled than reading a solution in a container — for anything you intend to record, test extracted solution rather than the carpet face. Will it work on solvents? pH is a property of water-based solutions. The manufacturer publishes no guidance for solvents and we would not rely on a reading from one. How accurate is it really? Plus or minus half a pH unit, per the manufacturer. That is genuinely useful for confirming a solution is in the right band and genuinely unsuitable for fine work. Paper or a meter? Paper is instant, costs nothing per test, needs no calibration and cannot go flat in the van. A meter is more accurate and more work. Most operators are well served by paper for daily checks and a meter only if they are documenting results. Related Products Bridgepoint Flex ICE Powder Low pH Rinse 2.72kg What We See in the Field We still get calls where somebody says, “But I used an acid rinse,” as though that guarantees what's left in the carpet is acidic. The only way to know is to test it, and pH paper is one of the simplest diagnostic tools a carpet cleaner can carry. Just don't expect wide-range paper to tell you the difference between 8.2 and 8.6 — it's excellent for answering “Am I alkaline, neutral or acidic?”, not for laboratory measurements. Unsure whether you need wide-range paper or a meter for the work you do? Contact Carpet Cleaners Warehouse and we will talk it through.
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