'Professional' carpet cleaners

[R D S]

Is there any benefit to getting people in to clean the carpets rather than renting a machine and DIY?

In either case is there likely to be much improvement over our Bissell?

[charles]

you'd be surprised how dirty the water gets.

[Mr Fuxit]

If you mean the Bissell which is an unpowered plastic container on a stick, then there will a massive improvement. The dirt is REMOVED from the carpet.

[The Medway Handyman]

A good carpet cleaner can work miracles. Alas a lot of them wear 10 gallon hats & spurs. Try to find one who is a member of the NCCA or BICS.

Failing that, hire a Rug Doctor which will give a massive improvement.

The Bissel might use dry foam shampoo, in which case an extraction machine will pull out all the residue and might over foam.

have a look here

[Jules Richardson]

and you'd be surprised at just how shitty Bissells are - they're like the drunken result of a pub meeting between Dyson and Drivel...

[Andy Dingley]

IMHO, the best thing is having your own (ours is the bigger Vax) and using it _regularly_. They're brilliant gadgets. Also the big Vax is far more effective than Bissells.

You will be amazed at how dirty the water gets. Funniest thing is lending it to houseproud Muslim friends. They're _appalled_ at how dirty their carpet water gets.

[harry]

You can rent a machine, it will likely do a better job. They will also supply a better detergent. It makes a surprising difference when the job is done. You need to go over the carpet two or three times in my experience. Takes longer and is harder work than you might expect. Amazing the muck that comes out.

Get in professionals only if you are an idle git.

[charles]

A pro machine filled with water is very heavy. You don't need to be idle to get someone in to do the job.

[R D S]

They look good. Got one hired for Monday.

[Rob Miller]

It depends which Bissell you have, the top of the range have a water heater and rotating brushes. My neighbour has one and says it gives excellent results. I had one of the mid-range Bissells until recently which didn't heat the water and had a static brush but even that gave excellent results.

If you hire a RugDoctor take proof of identity with you. It's a heavy machine so if you plan doing the upstairs and stair carpet you have to be prepared for the lifting and carrying. The RugDoctor I hired didn't heat the water (which amazed me) - as far as I know none of them heat the water. The brush on the RugDoctor oscillates backwards and forwards and is quite vicious, so if any of your carpets are nearing the end of their life (for example, hessian backing coming away from the upper pile) then you might find the carpet damaged. I can't say that I noticed much difference in the colour of the carpets or dirty water between DIY with a Bissell or a RugDoctor. I have never had carpet cleaning professionals in so I can't comment on that.

[Huge]

... bear in mind it's effing hard work.

The second time I needed a carpet cleaned, I Got A Man In.

[fred]

Dave is our resident expert on carpet cleaners but I have used the rug doctors on a number of occasions and they are brilliant. Like any machine of that sort they don't do quite up to the edge and you have to use the (less effective) hand tool for those areas. This can mean on a badly soiled light carpet you may notice the edge remains a little dirty.

Buy the big bottle of detergent, it's far better value than the small one and you can keep spare for the next time. Cheaper pattern detergents work just as well but I haven't bothered searching them out yet, the own brand stuff was too convenient and I wasn't doing enough to make the saving worthwhile.

Also watch out for dirt being sucked in under the edge of skirting and actually making the edge of the carpet dirtier. This is a particular problem in old houses where the skirting gap may have grown a bit and there will have been longer for the dirt to collect in the underfloor. Resolution is to test a small area and if dirt is being sooked in ease off and don't go so close to the edge (I now seal all my shirting gaps to avoid draughts & dirt ingress - old house).

[Rob Miller]

I agree, due to the weight of the machine plus water.

[R D S]

Ours doesn't heat the water, but we put hot water in it, and it does have a rotating brush. It's reasonably effective.

Our carpets aren't mega-manky or old but we have recently bought a new sofa and moved some furniture around in a bedroom. Where carpet was previously unexposed there is a visible difference so I just want something that might clean a bit more aggressively. If it doesn't work well i'll just dirty my shoes and walk all over the clean bits for a while.

The rug doctor is about £30 for the day so it's worth a punt. I'll report back.

[Jules Richardson]

Ours had a water heater and rotating brushes; it was still a quite spectacularly ineffective piece of junk in comparison to any of the rental machines that I've used.

Bissells (French for Dung, I believe) seem to have a quite impressive lack of suction, the tank's woefully small, the little whizzy thing that's supposed to indicate when it's doing something rapidly jams and does nothing. They're messy things because the seal between the removeable tank and the chassis likes to leak, as does the plug-it-in- upside-down bottle of cleaning fluid. Ours would regularly ingest the gasket from around the flap-valve for the hand-held tools.

The final straw was when part of the front (which is just relatively-thin plastic) cracked, leading to a major loss of what little suction it originally had. If you want something to make your carpets completely sodden then they're great, but a bucket of soapy water is far cheaper.

Ours has sat in the basement for the last four years. I'd drag it outside, pour petrol on it, and set fire to it, but it's frankly more trouble than it's worth. I don't think there are really even any useful parts that I can scavenge from it for use on other projects, except for perhaps for that big glowing red light that indicates that it's heating the water by a fraction of a degree - that's got to be useful for something, right?

Thankfully most of our house (the Bissell was bought for a previous home) is hardwood flooring, and the three bedrooms that have carpets instead don't get the traffic to need wet cleaning.

Oh, just had a thought. I need to put some panelling in the basement at some point - I think I'll just wall the bloody thing in for future generations to discover and ponder over...

cheers

Jules

[fred]

In article , Rob Miller writes

Useful info on the Bissells.

I agree the rug doctor is not ideal for stairs, I think the boxy upright body is really designed for large flat areas but I haven't found it heavy in use or moving around, maybe a half fill for use on stairs would be better.

When empty I think it's pretty light and on the flat the good sized wheels take the strain. I filled it with a gallon or so of hot tap water from a bucket so I can't see a need for a heater.

[Huge]

That's how I felt about our Electrolux vacuum cleaner, for similar reasons.

Except I really did burn that.

[R D S]

It performed better than I expected. Though I wish it had done a better job! Carpets are infinitely cleaner, despite being reasonably happy with our Bissel Powerbrush carpet washer I was surprised how much dirt was in them.

There were some areas it struggled with but in fairness we are talking about 8 year old cream carpets and we live on an unmade road and have a dog.

[SteveW]

We had a cleaning company in some years ago and have hired a rug doctor machine since. Neither has been obviously better than the Numatic George that we now have (both the Vaxes that I have used have been pretty poor.)

SteveW