carpet shampooing (at home) ?

M

MrSelfDestruct

New member
At work we got a $2500 carpet steamcleaner/extractor, and it works awsome. Usually first scrub the carpet with some CarBrite powerclean (mild degreaser/tire cleaner) then use the machine (with some CarBrite stuff in it).



Anyways I'm wondering what the best way to do it yourself at home? I'm assuming the use of a shop-vac.. but what (OTC?) products to use? I know it's gonna be alot more drying time than with an extractor, but that's okay.
 
Actually it's not okay. After twelve hours you can depending on the age, soil levels, backing materail see some pretty nasty microbial growth in carpets.



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.
 
Oh sh*t.. I feel there's been a miscommunication! :sadwavey:



By "at home" I meant cleaning your CAR carpet.. at home (like in your driveway)... not your home (house) carpet. I would have posted such a topic in another area on the forum.



I'll rename the thread to avoid more confusion.



When I said drying time I meant you can leave the windows/doors open for half the day and the sun will dry it up..



I really appreciate the post though.. it was very long and good information. :bigups
 
LOL well paint me pink and hit me with a hose. Sorry for the Off point sermon. That being said the same thing is true.



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.
 
Excellent advice. I've never heard of a "slurry", but I'll be sure to ask the CarBrite guy when he comes on Tuesday.





I'm kinda wondering though if there are any decent OTC product (carpet shampoo, or OTHER) that you can use. I have a supplier.. but many people on the forum do not. I'd like this to be a "do it yourself at home" thread that anyone can do...







I agree though that there is alot of dirt trapped in the carpet. At work I clean in the following fashion:



1. vacuum all the junk

2. scrub the carpet with the cleaner/mild degreaser product. This losens up the dirt trapped in as well.

3. Go nuts with the extractor. As you stated in previous post, the HEAT really brings up the dirt. With the machine it's then sucked up immediatly.

If there is still dirt, I repeat step 2-3



The water in the tank is FILTHY brown, with dirt and mud in the bottem! It's got a clear top so you can see the dirty water enter the machine as you work.. lol



Results are usually very good. I'm sure there is better way to get the carpet looking "softer", but we just want to scrub'm down clean. They are just used GM vehicles afterall..

These guys with a truck come every week and do our used vehicles. They steamclean the carpets and apply plastic over them (like a new vehicle would have). They said we have some of the cleanest vehicles they've seen :heelclick ... and personally I can't tell any difference after they steam clean the carpet anyways.
 
most major metro areas have access to comercial product suppliers. As for an OTC. I dunno mate, I have not found one yet.



Here is a link to my preferred chemical co. I would normally have about 20 diffrent manufactures chemicals on the truck at any one time. All for specific jobs and reasons. That being said for dirt, crime soils. you can not beat Prochem.



http://www.prochem.com/Chemicals.shtm
 
NO need to use "OTC" products, just order up the good stuff ;) TOL/ Hi-Temp, AutoInt/ValueGuard, I get a lot of my stuff from them. Now that online ordering is so prevalent people just need to expand their definition of "OTC" :D I've been getting "pro stuff" OTC at the local autobody/paint supply place since forever, seems like people just don't think of doing that. With the internet, it's even easier than it was 30 years ago.



Much as I love my Century extractor, it's really more of a convenience than anything else. It *does* work better than other methods, but : You can work hot cleaner into the fibers with a brush attachment on something like the Cyclo. You can spray hot water on as a rinse. You can suck it out with a wet/dry vac. You can accellerate the drying with a heater. Do this stuff the way Grouse instructed and you oughta be pretty happy with the results.



The "carpet cleaning" kits that Sears and others make for wet/dry vacs really do work OK. Get one that hooks up to the faucet so you can use hot water and switch easily to a clear-water rinse. Consider DIYing some small nozzles to get into the tight spots.



And as Grouse said in his post about household carpet- don't get things all saturated and don't let them stay wet.



No, it's not as nice as the steamer/extractor approach, but it works OK.



Heh heh, I sure like having the extractor though. Works great in the house too, and when I do it it dries a *lot* faster than when the local "pros" did it (and I tried a few of them). The suction of my Century (with the smallest nozzle) seems a *little* better than the suction of the truck-mounted units the pros used, but not enough to matter, likewise my unit's temp and my sprayer's psi seem virtually indentical. I suspect my apparently better results occur because I care more ;) and am willing to put more time and effort into it.
 
Grouse: even though it was the wrong posting I LEARNED A TON about house carpet cleaning. I've used the Rent-A-Thingie's and tried DIY with very limited success and rapid re-soiling of the carpet.



I've taken your in-depth response and gave a printed copy to my wife..



Thanks for the knowledge....every bit helps whether it's house carpet or car carpet.



Totoland Mach
 
Accumulator said:
NO need to use "OTC" products, just order up the good stuff ;) TOL/ Hi-Temp, AutoInt/ValueGuard, I get a lot of my stuff from them. Now that online ordering is so prevalent people just need to expand their definition of "OTC" :D I've been getting "pro stuff" OTC at the local autobody/paint supply place since forever, seems like people just don't think of doing that. With the internet, it's even easier than it was 30 years ago.



Much as I love my Century extractor, it's really more of a convenience than anything else. It *does* work better than other methods, but : You can work hot cleaner into the fibers with a brush attachment on something like the Cyclo. You can spray hot water on as a rinse. You can suck it out with a wet/dry vac. You can accellerate the drying with a heater. Do this stuff the way Grouse instructed and you oughta be pretty happy with the results.



The "carpet cleaning" kits that Sears and others make for wet/dry vacs really do work OK. Get one that hooks up to the faucet so you can use hot water and switch easily to a clear-water rinse. Consider DIYing some small nozzles to get into the tight spots.



And as Grouse said in his post about household carpet- don't get things all saturated and don't let them stay wet.



No, it's not as nice as the steamer/extractor approach, but it works OK.



Heh heh, I sure like having the extractor though. Works great in the house too, and when I do it it dries a *lot* faster than when the local "pros" did it (and I tried a few of them). The suction of my Century (with the smallest nozzle) seems a *little* better than the suction of the truck-mounted units the pros used, but not enough to matter, likewise my unit's temp and my sprayer's psi seem virtually indentical. I suspect my apparently better results occur because I care more ;) and am willing to put more time and effort into it.
Click to expand...





just with anything in life there ar fly by night places too, or crappy workers, or workers who have bad days. un maintained equipment, poor equipment, bad chemicals to save a buck.



Trust me i've seen them all. It's a crying shame. It is the main reason i have no intrest in going back into that buisness for myself. I will take my knowledge and put it to use else where.



Truck mounts usually can do 250 psi up to 900 psi ish. some to 1200 with ease. most can keep the temp at 200 above 500 psi with the right tips on the tool. The tips on the tool are a maintence item. They wear out about every 3-4 months and need replacing. So in 4 months that 1.5 gallon a min jet may end up beening closer to a 3 gallon jet. now times that x 4 on a quality wands... they could be putting out 12 gallons a min at the standard 300 psi. no machine can take that back or keep up the heat. Hence the cleaning suffers and the customer never calls them back.



the suction on a truck mount is about 460 cfm with 100ft of 2"hose. Most good porables will do a 160 cfm in 25ft of 1.5 inch hose.





anywho. moral of the story. if you get an uneasy feeling pass on them, find a crew and or a guy you like.
 
Grouse said:
just with anything in life there ar fly by night places too, or crappy workers, or workers who have bad days. un maintained equipment, poor equipment, bad chemicals to save a buck....anywho. moral of the story. if you get an uneasy feeling pass

on them, find a crew and or a guy you like.
Click to expand...



Thanks for the info on the truck-mounted equipment. Something was definitely off as I checked out their stuff and based my "the Century is comparable" on that first-hand inspection. Too bad the local franchises don't keep things up to snuff.



Oh, and Re the "pass on them", I had one crew that my primary K9 *refused* to "make friends" with, and that's almost unheard of. I figured he knew something I didn't and told them sorry, no can do. They weren't happy, but that wasn't my concern ;)
 
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