No matter how careful you try not to stain your carpet or how often you clean them yourself, you would still need professional carpet cleaning once in a while. Whether you have a wall-to-wall or area rug, you would have to carry out deep cleaning every 12 – 18 months. This sort of cleaning can only be done by a professional carpet cleaner.
While looking for a carpet cleaner for your carpet deep cleaning, do not be swayed by those who offer cheap prices because most cleaning companies offer sub-standard services. Opting to do the cleaning yourself by renting carpet cleaners may not be the best option.
If you aim to get your carpet cleaned, ensure that you get an in-home inspection and a written price quote. Getting an over-the-phone quote may not cut it as some things need to be taken into consideration and seen to determine the best cleaning method.
These guidelines will help you know how they have your carpet cleaned.
Who is qualified to carry out the best cleaning?
If you want to hire a cleaning company for your carpet cleaning, choose one that has employees with IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning, and Restoration Certification) training. This training involves about 25 different categories to teach the cleaners how to go about cleaning properly.
- Cleaning wall-to-wall carpets
Most wall-to-wall carpets are made from polypropylene (plastic), or threads of nylon and the wall-to-wall carpets are attached to the building so, only the top can be cleaned.Wall-to-wall carpets need to be vacuumed with commercial-grade vacuum cleaners not the regular ones like Hoover.
While choosing a professional carpet cleaner in London to clean your wall-to-wall carpets, choose one that uses specially mounted trucks with a powerful, efficient freshwater and recovery system. These trucks carry specialised hoses, wands, and vacuums that will be used for the cleaning.
Your carpets should be dye tested in spots to be sure that the cleaning soaps and chemical will not damage it. The hot water and soap from the truck will be sprayed on the carpet to loosen the dirt before rinsing it with hot water and extracting the water with vacuums.
Professional wall-to-wall cleaning should take about two and a half hours for the work to be completed while it takes 2 – 3 hours for the carpet to get dried. To speed up the drying process faster, leave a few windows open during the cleaning or turn your heater a little. Try not to put your furniture back as soon as the cleaning is finished because the wood may get damaged, or the metal on the furniture may leave a rust stain on your carpet.
- Cleaning area rugs and Oriental carpets
Oriental carpets and most area rugs are usually made of wool, wool blend, rayon, sisal, cotton or other natural materials. Do not hire a company that uses a machine that looks like a printing press to clean your Oriental and area carpets within hours. The cleaning procedure using this machine is similar to washing a car, and the process takes only a few minutes.Carpet cleaning companies that clean Oriental carpets at home are not to be trusted because cleaning Oriental carpets at home is like washing your clothes while you have them on. After the in-house inspection, the company should remove the carpet and take it to a plant for cleaning. In-plant cleaning provides a controlled environment for cleaning and drying your carpets. The cleaning process should take about 2 – 5 days.
Cleaning an Oriental carpet or area rug starts by dusting them with compressed air to remove the loose dirt. The next step is dye testing the carpet before soaking it overnight. By the next day, the rug will be immersed in warm soapy water at a low temperature because they are made from non-synthetic fibre. The rug will be soaked for three days, then it will be flushed with compressed air and water before allowing the rug to dry. The fringe will be cleaned then additional work like mothproofing, deodorising, removing gum or wax can be done.
- Cleaning pet stains
When you have pet stains on your carpet, you may decide to use ammonia to remove the stains, but the ammonium salts left behind may give off an odd smell during winter if your home is dry. In the warmer and wetter months, the odour may reduce as the ammonium salt absorbs water.
- Using chemicals and soaps
Strong chemicals and soap should only be used for wall-to-wall carpets. If you are sensitive to chemicals, ensure that you let the cleaning company know and discuss the chemicals to be used and how to lessen their effect. Most carpet cleaning chemicals have a fairly neutral pH, and wall-to-wall carpets require cleaning with alkaline cleaning agents.
