It's many years since I attempted to clean a carpet. I hired a cleaner once and it put so much water into the carpet that we gave up. I bought a VAX (the big orange one) and again found it too wet although the muck was certainly picked up. My wife used foamy sprays, but that was some years ago. What is the current 'best' method? The carpet is large, wool and fitted. I would rather not take all the furniture out of the room, although it may be possible.
I use a numatic George vacuum with carpet shampoo tools and commercial shampoo
Wife likes the dry powder that came with our sebo but only for small areas
Tony
We used an upright Vax washer recently and it was most impressive. Plenty of suck and very simple to use, unlike the big Vax things with loads of pipes and clips.
Si
The alternative to water and the Vax/George types is steam.
Never used it but I have heard a few good reports on it.
Surely the machines don't put "too much water " down .That's up to the person operating it . I've used a hired one in the past and after doing it the carpet was hardly damp at all.It certainly took loads of muck out of it .The water was black ..lol
Last time I did one I rented a Rug Doctor from one of the DIY sheds. They seem to work quite well.
Andy
Andy Champ coughed up some electrons that declared:
Agreed. If you have a whole house to do, it's worth the effort and the hire charge. The two things about a Rug Doctor are the oscillating scrubbing brush bar which cleans better than just spraying soapy water, and the vacuum extraction isn't bad compared to other units. My carpets are quite damp afterwards, but cleaning involves going over them 3 times due to the unmentionable things the kids deposited in the preceeding months!
But I do get very clean carpets, better than my VAX.
For about a day...
The VAX isn't bad for light and ready-to-hand cleaning (and it did it's job for a few years prior), but it struggles with kids... It's since been relegated to building duties because it is pretty indestructible. I'm going to build John Rumm's cyclonic-building-crap-trap for it when I get a moment...
Cheers Tim
How do you rate the Sebo as a vaccum please?
My mother has an upright Sebo. Finds it excellent in that get-it-out-and-do-what-you-need-and-put-it-back unfussy way that means you don't need to think about it. Light to use, noise level much better than most.
*I* like the Felix model (from looking at it in the shops) but partner has made it clear that my feelings are irrelevant. :-)
Depends on the model, but generally, based on 30 years selling cleaning machines, Sebo uprights are the best on the market.
LOL
In which case you didn't use it properly.
There is no 'current' best method, all the carpet cleaning methods I know of are 30 years old at least.
The VAX uses the spray/extraction method which offers a very high soil removal, because it uses sufficient water to flush out the dirt. See also 'omelette - breaking eggs'. You can't remove a lot of soiling without using a lot of water.
The vacuum on a soil extraction machine should easily remove any latent water - water which is present in the carpet, but not absorbed by the carpet fibre.
The foam method relies on two things, one is mechanical agitation to work the foam into the carpet. The foam dries quickly trapping the dirt. You then have to remove the trapped dirt thouroughly using a very good vacuum.
That answers your question. A wool carpet (probably 80/20 wool/nylon) will absorb 40% w/w of water. A synthetic carpet (nylon, acrilon, polypropylene) will absorb as little as 2%.
Nothing wrong with making a wool carpet wet. You mention it was 'too wet' or 'put so much water into the carpet'.
If you really over wet a wool carpet it will shrink by 30% along the length or the colours will run badly, or you will find brown staining all over the place. If none of these things happened that carpet didn't get too wet.
Ever seen a sheep shrink in the rain?
If anyone could tell me where the dirt goes I'd be interested. I can see how steam would loosen dirt from carpet fibres, but how does it remove it?
Known in the trade as a 'self container extractor' the Rug Doctor is an excellent DIY machine.
If my own extractor broke down & I couldn't borrow another from either of two carpet cleaner mates I'd hire a Rug Doctor.
I am surprised they don't sell a version of it... or are they silly money to buy?
But isn't it the (jute?) backing that really shrinks? So if there is sufficient water to wet that you can get spectacular shrinkage.
I have not seen a sheep shrink in any circumstances (other than a butcher's shop) - but I have seen a jumper come out of a washing machine having changed from XL to Child. I thought it was the physical latching/ratcheting of fibres one onto another that caused such shrinkage? (That is, rather than simply having been wetted.)
Why clean it? Things will still come back and live in inaccessible places.
Heave it. The council will take it away.
Mary
If anyone is thinking of doing this (great machines IME) then check out local morrisons before hiring. I found that the morrisons up the road offered
*massively* better rates than the homebase deal (a lot cheaper per day and they chucked in a bottle of the detergent).Only annoying thing is that they wouldn't accept bookings so you have to take a chance that they have one when you go in...
YMMV of course :)
Darren
They do sell them - red is hire, blue is for sale (they have some warning about never buying a red one as it will have been nicked).
quoting from their site:
"Millions already know about and have been renting Rug Doctor carpet cleaning machines for years. Now you can purchase the same powerful machine! The red rental Rug Doctor machines and the blue Rug Doctor machines have the same features, the same horse power, and the same amps. The only difference between the two is red machine is for the rental market and has an hour meter on it and the blue machines are available for purchase."
Darren
We have a Sebo X4 extra.... Excellent - if it ever fails, then I'd buy another
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