Carpet Cleaning
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Carpet care advice ~ after cleaning
It is unavoidable, after your carpets have been cleaned, they will gradually re-soil and stain, sooner or later, but what can you do to minimise this?
Firstly, we would suggest investing in a quality upright vacuum cleaner, try to avoid small cylinder cleaners with no mechanical brushing, for example, the SEBO Felix or Dart, will deliver excellent dry soil removal, it is light and easy to use and will actually work when it is flat on the carpet surface, great for vacuuming under beds and difficult to reach areas.
Blotting is key, avoid using spray and wipe/scrub domestic wonder products, these well marketed solutions will often make no improvement at all, with some actually damaging the carpet fibres colour stability, many people will panic at this stage, using even more products, sometimes a mixture of three or four, which can be terminal. The best stain removal a customer can execute is by using non colour fast towels, one dry and one moist, blot the area with both, draw the stain out of the carpet or rug, this is the best way.
The innocent looking slipper….over the last few years I have noticed that more slippers on the market have black rubber soles, over time these will wear, often resulting in colour transfer from the slipper to the carpet or rug, resulting in traffic areas that resemble a race track, showing where the slippers have been worn. Try to buy slippers with light soles!
Pot plants can cause carpet and rug fibres irreparable damage, before introducing a plant pot into your home, test it, fill it up with water and make sure that it isn’t porous, leave it for two days and check if any water has soaked through the pot. We see circular marks on carpets that have been produced by planted pots, where the home owner has unwittingly watered the plant for several months without realising that moisture has seeped through the pot onto their carpet, this will cause the fibres to rot, leaving permanent damage!
Draw your curtains or close your blinds on hot summer days, this will reduce ultra violet damage to your rugs, upholstery and carpets.
Carpet, rug and upholstery damage from cosmetics.
A report recently published from a specialist insurance company has revealed that beauty gadgets and products have caused a massive £900m worth of damage in homes throughout the UK, advice for consumers is to closely read your insurance cover small print.
The economic situation has led to more people opting to use home beauty treatments rather than taking a trip to professional salons, unfortunately damage caused to carpets, rugs and soft furnishings amounted to an average of £153 per household.
Not suprisingly carpets appear to be the biggest victim, with 85% of people admitting to carpet burning, 73% of people spilling hair dye on rugs and carpets and 72% ruining carpets with nail varnish.
Households in the North caused the most damage, with an average of £172 per household, with 50% of Scots revealing that damage to carpets and soft furnishings totalled up to £500 to repair.
Even if you do not indulge in home pampering, watch out! 20% of people surveyed also admitted causing damage to furnishings, carpets and rugs in OTHER PEOPLES homes!
Some suprising statistics for sure, try to always use blotting methods rather than scrubbing with domestic ’super sprays’
Landlords cleaning package- Cleaning and Carpet Cleaning, Eastbourne & Brighton.
Here at SDC we believe in improving our service, sometimes a positive angle is to consider your customers position, with a view to making their life a little bit easier, this is why we have joined forces with one of the best domestic cleaning service provider in East Sussex.
After tenants or previous owners have moved out, extensive cleaning is usually required. We now are in a position to generate swift quotations for preparing property for new owners/tenants, a thorough clean of this kind involves he following:
Washing down paintwork - Cleaning kitchen cupboards - Oven cleaning - Cleaning windows and frames - cleaning hard floors - cleaning switches and sockets - washing down tiles - cleaning toilets - de-scaling shower screens and baths - cleaning fitted wardrobes - washing down walls - cleaning fittings and much more.
After all of this preparation is complete, we then liaise with our domestic cleaning specialist to gain access to the property. We thoroughly clean all carpeted areas using probably the most advanced truck mounted system available, delivering not just cosmetic cleaning, but also hygienic cleaning, leaving the property ready for the new tenants or owners. This service is designed to give the owner a ‘one stop’ source when preparing a house or flat for re-occupation.
Carpet & Upholstery cleaning - Colour dye and Transfer.
After years of cleaning carpets and upholstery cleaning, I have seen many cases of dye and colour transfer, a recent example was a two seater sofa in Hove, the piece was finished in cream but over the months a strange blue colour had appeared on the arms and cushions.
After asking my customer about the sofa and it’s history, I found out that the furniture had been left in the property for six months whilst the house had been rented out, the tenants were guys in their twenties. The colour was in actual fact from blue jeans, the dye can transfer from clothing to furniture over a period of time, more so if a person has just arrived home on a rainy day (moist jeans will release much more colour the dry ones).
After a thorough vacuum and pre-cleaning treatment, the upholstery was successfully cleaned, all evidence of blue jeans completely removed! much to the relief of our customer.
This problem is also common when wooden furniture that has been through a dying process is placed on moist carpet, an essential part of our business is placing foil or polystyrene blocks under furniture feet after cleaning, it is important to wait until carpeted areas that have been cleaned are completely dry before placing furniture back in their original position. Unlike furniture dye, rust marks from metal feet are relatively easy to remove from carpet and fabric fibres.
Knowing about these pitfalls enable us to achieve better, safer cleaning results, protecting our customers investments throughout their home.
Carpet and Upholstery cleaning - Our solutions.
Safe and consistent carpet and upholstery cleaning solutions, some information on a solution we use for cleaning-
M-Power® Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, is:- Derived from renewable/sustainable sources
- Fully Biodegradable
- Exhibits anti-bacterial & anti-viral properties thanks to its unique natural-molecular cleaning action.
- Non-toxic to humans and pets
- Non-toxic to aquatic life
- Non-reactive with chemicals, such as chlorine bleach
- Non-caustic
- Non-combustible
- Non-corrosive
- Non-flammable
- Non-fuming,
- Non-hazardous
- Non-polluting
M-Power® Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner contains:- NO ammonia
- NO animal products
- NO Bacteria or Enzymes
- NO artificial ingredients
- NO isopropyl alcohol
- NO phosphates
- NO solvents (apart from water)
- NO synthetic chemicals
- NO harmful ingredients
- NO Soap or detergents
This product works particularly well when cleaning natural fibre carpets or upholstery, a good dwell time is recommended, we usually let the product work for twenty minutes.
Payment before service?
After cleaning carpets and upholstery for many years we have seen many questionable practices, we recently have visited a website offering carpet cleaning services in this area, when clicking on the ‘get quote’ button I was asked to make sure my credit card was to hand! Stop! We believe this is the correct procedure to follow:
A customer calls or makes an e mail enquiry -
We respond with by offering to visit and conduct a survey, or by sending an e mail costing (this is free of charge)
If the quotation is acceptable -
We will call in, phone or e mail suggesting some times that may be suitable to our customers. (again free of charge)
On the day we arrive, we will execute our three stage cleaning process and only then, will we present our invoice, we expect no pre-payments or deposits, we are confident that you will be pleased with our standards of work.
We are NCCA (National Carpet Cleaners Association) members and follow a strict code of conduct, giving our customers peace of mind.
The importance of the vacuum cleaner.
Much has been written about ‘indoor air quality’, homeowners and carpet cleaners alike sometimes don’t spend enough time using their vacuum cleaner, on rugs, carpets and upholstery.
Vacuuming is the first and MOST important part of the cleaning process, so why would we encourage our customers to use their vacuum cleaner more often? without regular and thorough vacuuming, over the months, large quantities of loose particulate soil gather behind the pile and backing that could actually weigh more than the carpet itself!
As cleaning techicians, this information gives us every reason to give your carpet a detailed and comprehensive vacuum before we start our cleaning process, with over 80% of the soil in your carpet being lose, its well worth doing properly. If a carpet cleaning operator turns up a tries to convince you that a good vacuum isn’t necessary, don’t use him, lose soil will instantly turn into mud/sludge, which will be nearly impossible to remove.
We recommend a quality upright cleaner, we like SEBO vacuum cleaners, a strong vacuum motor in conjunction with an effective beater bar/brush will enable you to remove much of the dry soil in your carpet, its also good exercise!
SEBO Dart Upright Vacuum Cleaner
Stain cleaning using the supermarket spotter.
Ahh….. a stain on your new carpet! However careful we are, sooner or later, a nasty looking stain will be staring back at you, the most common reaction is to purchase a bottle of spotter from the local supermarket.
Damage, colour loss and stains can easily occur on upholstery, rugs and carpets if ‘oxy’ type solutions are incorrectly used, these products contain oxidizing containing sodium percarbonate, hydrogen peroxide and sodium perborate. Medical and cosmetic products containing benzoyl peroxide will also leave you with permanent colour loss and bleach damage.
This type of product should not be used on:
SILK (including rugs containing silk)
Leather
Wool
Wool blend - rugs and carpets
Often people call us after using these products (or a cocktail of solutions) after failing to remove stains, often the instructions on the bottle are ignored, more and more solution is sprayed onto the stain, this will often lead to dye bleed, permanent staining and colour loss ( particularly on upholstery)
We will often need to see the product actually used, and on some occasions be unable to clean the area affected, if the stain had been worked on several weeks or months previous to our visit, the stain damage can be masked by soiling.
The best advice we can offer when using these products would be to always read the data sheets or instructions and use the correct dilution rates without ’scrubbing’ the fibres.
Carpet cleaning, the five steps.
The days of wheeling an old carpet cleaning machine into a house or office and starting to clean are long gone (although you will find some people still doing this) maximum soil removal will be achieved using the following principles.
Dry Soil Removal.
This is without doubt the most important part of the carpet cleaning process. Dry soil or particulate matter
will increase carpet fibre wear, which actually scratches and abrades fibres. Using the correct vacuum cleaner for individual pile type is also important, a powerful upright cleaner is an excellent choice when vacuuming tufted carpets, but not so good with woolen loop pile, which will felt up, we recommend a tub or cylinder type cleaner. Also make sure you change your vacuum bag when it is 3/4 full, reduced vacuum is seen after this point, which reduces soil removal.
Industry figures suggest 80% of the dry soil is removable by effective dry vacuuming. True carpet cleaning professionals will have powerful equipment able to remove dry soils along with knowledge of how to remove the maximum levels of soils by employing the techniques they have learnt.
The Suspension of Soil.
The solution pie, a combination of the following fundamentals need to followed to achieve the best results.
1- Agitation of the pile
2-Time
3- Temperature
4- Solution action
5- Cleaning with TACT
Grooming and pile setting.
A carpet that has not been groomed in high traffic areas often causes customers to show concern regarding the carpets performance. Grooming after cleaning is particularly important if the carpet has rotary cleaning marks or swirls or straight forward ‘wand’ marks from extraction cleaning. Grooming also helps with the application of protective or odour treatments and more importantly in carpet drying times.
The principle of drying.
With modern carpet cleaning equipment, drying should now be between one and four hours. Good ventilation (open windows and doors) will make a huge difference, airflow helps to realise the moisture in carpet fibres. Other considerations that relate to drying also need to be taken into consideration, for example fibre type and construction and the level of soiling. Air moving equipemt can also speed up drying times, particularly if hot water extraction has been used in the cleaning process. If drying times are of great concern to the customer, low moisture cleaning and dry cleaning methods can also be used.