We often think about carpet cleaning as a service you use when your carpets start to look dirty or when you see a stain. This is the stage when your carpets are starting to sustain damage.
Soil is like sandpaper to your carpet, it crushes the pile and doesn’t allow the light to reflect back out, resulting in darker areas. An example of this is walkways in common areas.
The Australian Standards for carpet cleaning in Australia recommends having carpets cleaned 6 – 12 monthly depending on the amount of people residing on the premises. To remove dust, microscopic organisms, pet & human hair, soil and anything floating around in the area we suggest Hot Water Extraction.
Hot Water Extraction:
HWE is a method of carpet cleaning which involves hot water and cleaning detergent. As the term suggests this method extracts (lifts) soiling out of the carpet. The carpets are first pre sprayed with a pleasant smelling detergent which breaks up the soil and lifts it into the pile of the carpet.
The next step is to extract the now dirty water back up into the tank and rinse the carpet at the same time. Carpet pile is lifted with the vacuum and is left feeling soft and fluffy. Rinsing is an essential step, similar to the rinse in a dishwasher which leaves the glasses streak free. Sometimes mistaken for steam cleaning because the water coming out of the wand is very hot therefore produces steam, but it’s not pure steam.
Maintenance at Home:
The Australian Standards recommend vacuuming carpets 2-3 times a week. A motorised vacuum head is essential to pick up as much soil/dirt as the vacuum will allow. Resulting in longer carpet life, less allergens in the air, also grooming and lifting the pile for comfort. There is no such thing as too much vacuuming.
Technique for Vacuuming:
Firstly, vacuum a row of carpet moving forward for 3-4 steps then moving backwards to where you started. Move forward again on a slight angle so you are overlapping where you have just cleaned. Keep doing this until you reach the wall. If the room is heavily soiled, you can vacuum the room again but in the opposite direction. This is very effective in removing most of the soiling.
Next week we will be talking about effective stain removal in carpets.