What model of carpet cleaner do you use and why?

Everyone knows that when spring comes around, it’s time to clean your house. Carpet cleaning isn’t just a way to get rid of stains with carpet stain removers; it’s also a way to keep your home clean and to make your carpet pile last longer and work better.

Most people think that they only need to clean their carpets when there are stains that are easy to see. This is wrong. Every 12 to 18 months, carpets need to be cleaned. Plus, depending on the type of your carpet’s warranty, it may need to be cleaned more often.

How should you clean your carpet?

There are a few ways to clean your carpet, and each one has pros and cons. So how do you choose the best way to clean your carpet? Here are the pros and cons of each method to help you decide which one to use before your next cleaning.

You can clean your carpets in two ways: 

Dry cleaning or wet cleaning by carpet shampooer. No water or “very low water” (VLM) is used to clean dry carpet cleaning method. The hot water extraction method is a way to clean a wet carpet with water. Most of the time, people call wet cleaning “carpet steam cleaning.”

The dry cleaners

Even though it uses a little water, surface cleaning is usually what people mean when they talk about dry cleaning a carpet. This is an easy way to clean areas that get a lot of foot traffic and need to dry quickly. This is not the best way to clean everything, but it works well for keeping things clean.

Dry cleaning with an absorbent compound is done by spreading a mixture of a powder with special cleaning agents and solvents over your carpet and then working it into the carpet fibres with a machine with counter-rotating brushes. The powder soaks up the dirt in the carpet, and after about 10 to 15 minutes, the powder mixture is vacuumed up.

Pros

• A simple way to clean that doesn’t require any special training
• dries quickly, and you can walk on your carpet again in about 20 minutes.
• A method that is cheap, quick, and easy to use

Cons

• Powder can’t be completely vacuumed up, so it can build up in the carpet over time.
• Powder can cause dust to build up in your home. It can’t get deep into your carpet to clean it.
• Wet cleaning
• Wet cleaning, also called steam cleaning, is done with hot water extraction (HWE). The first step is to use a shampoo for precondition the carpet. This helps make soil and oil-based stains easier to clean. 

The machine sprays a cleaning solution on the carpet and then vacuums up all the dirt and allergens, along with the cleaning solution and collects water in dirty water tank. This solution helps get the dirt out of the fibres of the carpet.

Cleaning machines that use steam can be mounted on a truck or be portable. Both of these ways have their good points. The obvious benefit of a portable machine is that it can be used in smaller spaces, like condos or apartment buildings, where the truck-mounted hose can’t reach. 

Even so, the power of the truck-mounted unit is a better way to clean in general, and it should be used whenever possible for the best cleaning. If you are worried about how much it will cost to have a professional clean your carpets, you might want to think about only having the areas that get the most use cleaned. 

This means you don’t have to move big pieces of furniture like your bed or sofa because the cleaner will just clean around them. Since you can’t see the carpet under those big pieces of furniture, it makes sense that you wouldn’t need to clean that area as often. But if you move your furniture around a lot, it’s best to have the whole surface of the carpet cleaned.

Pros

• Can get dirt out of the carpet even if it’s deep down.
• Use high temperatures, chemical concentrates, and high pressures.
• Allows the cleaning solvent to do its job over a long period of time
• Chemical reactions can be stirred up with the help of an extraction wand or grooming tool.
• The most common way to clean a carpet
• It is recommended by carpet manufacturers, professionals, and carpet cleaners for annual carpet maintenance.

Cons

• It takes a while to dry, but some skilled technicians can speed up the process by using powerful tools.
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• Most of the time, expensive equipment is the only way to get the most work done.
• costs more than other methods.
• Clean your own carpets
• You may have seen the carpet cleaning machines you can rent at your local grocery store or hardware store or the many steam cleaning machines in your local department stores. There are a lot of machines out there that might make you think twice about calling a carpet cleaner once a year.
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• If your carpet gets a lot of spills or has a few hard-to-clean spots, a small spot cleaner can be helpful to have on hand. This is not, however, the kind of machine that can clean your whole carpet well.

Risks of Cleaning Your Own Carpet

When you use a do-it-yourself machine, you’ll notice that the water doesn’t get as hot as it does in a professional machine used by carpet cleaning company, which is important for getting a good clean. Plus, this kind of machine doesn’t have as much power as a professional machine, so it can’t get as much dirt and water out of the carpet.

When you rent a carpet-cleaning machine, the price will include:

• The price to rent a carpet cleaner
• A cleaner that does a lot of work
• Attachments for cleaning upholstery or other cleaning agents, such as a spotter spray, are available as add-ons.
• When you’re done cleaning your carpet, it shouldn’t be very wet. If your carpet is still pretty wet, you’ll know that the machine you used wasn’t strong enough to do the job well. If your carpet is still very wet after being cleaned, you can use fans to help it dry faster. Don’t walk on it or put the furniture back on it before it’s completely dry, though.

Before you clean your own carpet, you should also think about how much cleaner you will need to put in the machine and how fast or slow you will move the machine over the carpet. All of these things can cause problems when you clean your own carpet.

Pros

• Save money right away
• You decide exactly what gets cleaned and when. You don’t have to make an appointment and can work around your own schedule.
• Products that remove stains and spots are pretty cheap.

Cons

• You won’t have as much power as a pro, so you won’t be able to clean as well.
• You have to do it yourself. It can take a long time to dry.
• When you treat stains yourself, they tend to come back.
• Cleaning the carpet
• Shampooing may seem to clean heavily soiled carpets, but it leaves behind a lot of wet foam residues and takes a long time to dry. Since no rinsing is done after shampooing, the carpet becomes sticky when it dries and quickly gets dirty again, which makes this method less popular than the others.

Encapsulation

Encapsulation is done with a base made of synthetic detergents that dry into a powder. When people first tried to make encapsulation formulas, they didn’t work very well. After cleaning, carpets quickly got dirty again because any residues left behind continued to attract dirt. 

Professional cleaners use special tools or a compression sprayer to apply encapsulation products. After the detergent dries, a vacuum usually sucked up the polymer and dirt crystals as part of the cleaning process. 

Even though they stick to the fibres of the carpet, the bond is very weak, and the residue is easily pulled away from the fibres. This way of cleaning has replaced carpet shampooing because it uses less water and dries faster.

Cleaning the bonnet

A skill is needed to use this kind of system. It works well because it mostly cleans the top part of the carpet fibre with a heavy-duty motorised machine with a spinning pad that has been soaked in cleaning solution to soak up dirt from the carpet surface. This way of cleaning has a lot of problems.

 It only cleans to a depth of about 1/8 of an inch, and it will definitely leave behind residue. We would only use it on thin carpets that are very strong. If you use it on the wrong kind of carpet, it will hurt the pile and push dirt deeper into the carpet instead of cleaning it. We also suggest putting an antimicrobial agent on the carpet afterwards to make sure it is clean.

Problems with Carpet Cleaning

Whether you hire a professional to clean your carpet or do it yourself, things can go wrong. Some of these problems are:

• A musty smell or mould growing
• Water or brown spots on the back of the carpet
• In the worst case, the carpet can crack or shrink, which can ruin it.
• You can always ask the carpet cleaner to take out more water if your carpet seems too wet, to lend you an industrial-strength blower to help your carpet dry faster, or to lift the carpet back so they can dry the underlay.
• Are the chemicals that are used to clean a carpet safe?
• When you decide to have your carpets cleaned by professionals, you can ask them what chemicals they will use. Some of the chemicals can hurt you and your family, so you need to know which ones to stay away from.

Some chemicals you and your family shouldn’t come in contact with are:

• Butane Glycol Ether
• Hydrofluoric Acid 
• Sodium Bisulfate Nitrilotriacetate Acid
•  Isobutane or Propane Perchloroethylene 
• Ammonium Chloride Sodium Carbonate 
• Sodium Hydroxide

You can ask your carpet cleaner if there are other ways to clean your carpets that don’t involve these harsh chemicals. There are also a number of carpet cleaners that are safe for you and your family and are good for the environment. If you decide to do the cleaning yourself, make sure to read the labels and don’t expose yourself to anything dangerous.

How to Make Your Carpet Last Longer

To make your carpet last longer, you should make sure to do these things:

Keep systems in place to get rid of most of the dirt that gets brought into your home or business. Pay extra attention to entrances and areas that get a lot of foot traffic.

Every day, vacuum up any dirt or dust that might damage the carpet fibres.

Spot cleaning and cleaning in between should be done regularly.

Do some deep cleaning once in a while, which can be dry or wet cleaning depending on how much traffic you have.

Most professionals agree that your carpet will need a wet cleaning at some point during its life. 

A common way to damage your carpet is to use harsh chemicals or to not clean it well enough. Follow the right steps for cleaning and maintaining your carpet to make sure it lasts for a long time.

Conclusion

Many people’s first impressions of your home or office will be based on your carpet, so it is important to keep it clean. Whether you use a dry cleaner, a wet cleaner, or clean the carpet yourself is up to you, but you should always do research on the company you choose and test carpet initially with the solution. 

When you find the best way to clean your carpet for you and your home, you can relax and enjoy a clean carpet while helping to keep it in good shape and making it last longer. 

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