stains on new carpet...

Iron oxide - one of humanity's oldest and most stable pigments.

It's a non-soluble pigment, not a dye. So you've no hope of trying to clean it up by dissolving it in a solvent. You'll have to wash it out instead, with copious supplies of liquid. I'd expect a wet carpet cleaner with vacuum to be your best hope here. You might hire one, if you don't already have a Vax.

Fortunately the pigment doesn't attach itself well to fibres, so it does wash out well. Unless there's wool in the carpet, when it may stain permanently (also for many timbers). The tenacity of iron oxide pigment depends on how finely it was ground - random plumbing crud should be a lot easier to shift than dusty cement pigment.

When I was a kid, we had a red setter. I came home from school one day to find a redder red setter than usual. In a very much redder house than usual. He'd ripped open a bag of red raddle (cement pigment) and spread it _everywhere_.

We had to re-paper the walls (there was a brushed stripe at dog height), but it came out of the carpets and soft furnishings fairly well.

A can of 1001 Troubleshooter carpet cleaner might be worth a try. Spray on, work into a lather, leave to dry, and vacuum up with the dirt attached to it. I found it to be very successful at removing a load of black iron dust which had worn off inside a door handle and went straight into the carpet when I unscrewed it. Vacuuming alone didn't touch it.

There is also a stain devil for it. Smells like cabbages, but got rust out of a white T shirt.

Bob

Probably based on oxalic acid. Might be needed for wool or cotton, but shouldn't be necessary for synthetics.

Awww bless.

And how did it come out of the dog? :-)

Owain

Borrow a steam cleaner.

We've got a cheap "steam bullet". It's a portable handheld steam cleaner - you fill it with cold water and when it heats up it has a trigger action steam jet. I think it was around £30.

The steam can be used to blast most dirt and muck away.

Put the nozzle on one side of the stain and a clean cloth on the other side of the stain. The steam is usually sufficient to blow the stain out of the carpet and straight onto the cloth.

Might be wise to try it on a concealed area first of all to make sure the carpet can cope.

Steam cleaners are also superb for defrosting a freezer. I can defrost our freezer using the steam cleaner in about 10 minutes.

Graham

Yes ... rust ... :-(

...

Hmm. You've never seen the result of a steel pin being left in damp cotton.

What's worse, the heaviest affected part of the affected item disintegrates, leaving a hole. I've never been able to wash it out, some stain removers might cause a chemical reaction but I suspect it wouldn't be kind to the fabric.

I opine that immediate cleaning is the only answer, whatever method is tried. It will only get worse if it bonds.

Was the raddle coloured with iron oxide?

LOL! You should have left it as a design feature :-)

Mary

Hi Graham

Wise indeed mate. I once attempted to get chewing gum out of a 100% acrylic carpet. The steam nozzle had a brass end which touched the carpet and melted a spot of it!

Yup! That and a wet/dry vacuum to pick up the water!

Dave

My grandfather used to defrost his fridge by putting a bar heater in front of it. Well, that was until he bought a Hotpoint Iced Diamond fridge in the 1960's, which was the first fridge he'd had with a plastic liner. Called out the Hotpoint engineer and said "looks what's happened". Engineer, confronted with a fridge which looked like a Salvador Dali painting with its liner hanging in long stalactites, and running out into a puddle on the floor, said "Blimy. Never seen one do this before gov".

Natural fibre though - whole different situation from synthetic, which I assume this carpet will be (possibly with some wool).

Also steel will stain worse than already oxidised iron, if you leave it around long enough and moist enough.