I have 8 years exp, 6 of them as a certified IICRC tech 4 as a master restoration tech, and a odor control specialist.
First OTC usually contains optical brighteners, which have no real cleaning capabilities. Where as, dedicated carpet chemicals and fabric chemicals are specifically made for the task of cleaning with minimal possibility of resoling. Look at it this way. It's like buying cheap wax versus having a professional zaino sealant put on. The difference is that amazing.
DIY carpet cleanings can take up to a week to dry. Do you want to live with wet soggy feet and the possibility of respitory problems?
Things to look for.
IICRC Certified techs. This means they have a standard of training that sets them above the fly by night out fits.
Truck mounted systems they can heat the water to 240* at 300 psi and keep it there hour on end. I prefer prochem truck mounted machines it is what i was used to but there are a half dozen good brands.
Top quality chemicals. IE prochem, pro's choice, bridge point, hydra master.
Things they should do and you should ask them about on the phone.
You want them to estimate the job and give you a final price before they start.
They should Vacuum the house first.
They should pre-spot all stains and spots.
They should pre condition the carpet. (this is a wetting agent, surfactant and detergent mix) This is the prep conditioner that will allow the cleaning slurry to really reach full potential.
The carpet should be lightly agitated to assure the cleaning product is reaching as much of the fiber as possible.
They should clean with quality slurry or rinsing agent depending on the soil contaminant levels in the carpet.
They should move any furniture you want moved and clean behind. Then move back and replace on blocks or chips.
They should dry stroke very thoroughly. Even possibly set up blowers as the carpet drys.
They should apply protectant if you want it.
Here is a rundown on the different types of cleaning that i typed up a while ago.
1) You need 3 things to effectively clean any fabric.
Time
Agitation/chemical reaction
Heat
Idealy you would like equal amounts of the three. This can not always be. Time and agitation are the easiest and many times the most productive. If you want to clean an area or spot you pre treat it. Then move on to the next item that needs your attention. By doing this you combine the first two allowing them to do 90% of the work. How many times have you pretreated a stain on a shirt/pants or on a driveway to be sure it gets removed?
Heat comes into play in the initial cleaning and rinsing stage. The more heat you add the faster g the chemical reactions happen, the less time is needed to achieve the same results. You need heat to both Clean with a detergent and rinse a detergent out. When you put soap on your hands does it clean better with hot or cold water, does it rinse better with hot or cold?
2) Detergents.
Detergents are what remove soils from fabrics. DUH.. Yeah I stated the obvious. But here is a basic intro in to how they work. The Detergent molecule is shaped like a dog bone. One end is super attracted to dirt. Dirt attaches on and sticks with it. The other end is attracted to moisture. The end that is attracted to moisture is what allows us to remove the detergent and soils from the fabrics. The moisture gives us enough mass and weight for the vacuum to pick it up. The less moisture (with in reason) the harder it is to remove the soils and detergents. If detergents are left in the carpet… the end attracted to the moisture fails leaving only the end that attracts dirt. This is the primary cause of rapid re-soiling.
Carpet cleaning methods.
Host
Host cleaning is the application of small polymer granules that have chemical cleaning detergents applied to them. You have probably seen this as the name brand "capture" . You sprinkle the granules on the affected areas, rake or agitate them in and then vacuum with a home vacuum out of the carpet. This method has very little detergent and very little moisture. This limits the amount of soils it can remove. Also the way in which the product it self is removed is not always the best. By this I mean you can leave enough in the carpets to cause re-soiling.
Bonnet Cleaning
Bonnet cleaning is a great tool for fabric maintenance. Basically you pretreat the bonnet and the fabric with your detergent. Then attach that to a power head which spins the bonnet at high speeds. This creates the chemical reaction, Agitation and heat needed to suspend the soils from the fabric. After a few yards the bonnet is flipped over and a clean side is used. This process is repeated until the whole area is finished. It is considerably faster drying than hot water extraction and faster in overall time to perform the task.
The down sides are. You are reaching only about the top 1/8th to ¼ of the pile of the fiber. This means any dirt below that is still in the fibers. Since there is no real rinsing of the detergents you can see fast re-soiling. Though many times the res-oiling is due to the dirt from the bottom of the carpet wicking up and not from the detergents.
This is what Chem Dry is. Now I said this is a great tool for maintenance. And it is. It is faster, cheaper than hot water extraction. In between your bi yearly hot water extraction cleans this is an excellent way to keep that just cleaned look. It is not however a replacement for hot water extraction.
Hot water extraction
Where to begin.
Well this is a truck mounted system with a 2 in hose run by a 3-4 cylinder engine, or a power take off of the van it's self. Under pressure you can achieve 240 degree water/rinsing solution/cleaning solution. The vacuum can is extremely powerful. At 150' you can see 405 cfm at 13" of HG.
Here is how all this tech works for you.
1) Pre spot with the appropriate spotting agents. The less chemicals a spotting agent has to work through the more successful I will be in removing the soil. This is why many times over the counter products actually inhibit a carpet cleaners chances of success. I can not tell you how many times I had to clean two spots, one the customer had worked on and one they had not. The one they had not usually came out much nicer than the one they had worked on.
2) Pre treat with Traffic lane cleaner. This is your main detergent. This will pick up 90% of the soils you will remove for you.
3) Agitation of the Traffic lane cleaner. This is not to scrub a spot, but to simply ensure you have distributed the detergents to the complete surface area of the fiber.
4) Time, some more time, a bit more, shave, shower, wake up go on vacation, a bit more time.. you get the hint. All jokes aside. Anywhere from 15-45 minutes depending on the pile height, to soil content of the carpets. The more time you give it the more the chemicals and the heated traffic lane cleaner will do. The less stress on the fiber it's self and the employee.
5) Rinsing, Generally I used some form of rinsing agent. This is usually a slightly opposite ph to the traffic lane cleaner. This helps do several things. It makes the carpet softer, it works on certain soils traffic lane cleaners do not, and it helps keep your carpet from building up a high ph content. Rinsing it's self helps suspend all of the detergents soils, spotters, greases in a hot flowing water jet. This water is then sucked up by the vacuum.
6) Dry/finishing stroke. As a general rule a 4 jet machine will put down 6 gallons of water a minute and remove 4 gallons a minute. The finishing stroke is used to remove as much as that remaining 2 gallons as possible. It also speeds up drying. The longer a carpet is damp the more likely you will see re-soiling from traped in soils wicking up to the surface. Now your probably wondering trapped soils? Yeah even with hot water extraction you can only reach about the top 70-80% of the fiber length. Some times heavily soiled carpets need repeated cleanings. Yes that is costly. A good cleaner should be able to identify such a carpet/fabric when he estimates the job.
Drying time is about 6-12 hours depending on pile height, temp, humidity. Running the air conditioning will remove moisture, adding heat to the AC will help remove even more. Humidity will keep the carpet/fabric damp longer. It is a fine balance to get rid of all the extra moisture. But 6-12 hours is about what it should be.
What you are left with is a soft, supple, clean looking and clean smelling carpet.
What I would do is:
Dry vacuum
Dry vacuum
When you think you are done.
Dry vacuum.
Here is why. 90% of soils & dirt are particulate matter best removed by… you guessed it dry vacuuming. I see many people make the mistake of putting on the chemicals too soon. This just makes mud. With out rinsing mud does not come out very well. Even then… it comes out poorly.
After the dry vacuum I would lint roll it for hair and junk. Then I would find a good cleaning chemical. There should be a carpet cleaning supply company near you. Many times you can rent the very machine you have at your shop. I’d either rent one or buy a smaller version like the bissel lil green machine. (not a superb product but if you are careful it will serve you well) Any way at your supplier, purchase a slurry. It will be granular in texture. Mix it according to the directions. This is key, as if it is improperly mixed you will hinder it’s ability to clean the dirt.
Spray the slurry on,(pump sprayer) lightly brush in. Just enough to get it into the surface of the fiber. Let this sit for 10-20 min. You do not want it drying out.
After 10-20 min spray a section with clean water and extract with shop vac. Spray same area about 3 times with clean water. If you don’t get the slurry out it will re-attract dirt in the coming months.
Dry stroke with the shop vac a good dozen or so times for each time you sprayed it with rinsing water.
