Tips For Effective Carpet Cleaning
Compared to years ago, carpet cleaning has come a long way. Our grandmothers were limited to a few very strong cleaning agents that usually took out the stain, right along with the color of the rug. Typically, they would just take the rugs out back and beat them silly, hoping for the best.
The original rug cleaning machines, the ones you could rent at your local grocery store, were huge and very heavy. They also were fairly useless. The premise was to put heavy duty commercial grade brushes on the bottom, put some shampoo and water in the tank, press a button, and the brushes would distribute the shampoo which was supposedly going to dry so you could vacuum it up after about twelve hours.
Unfortunately, these machines did more damage than they did good. The shampoo eventually dried, but not into a fine powder that could easily be vacuumed. It usually took days for the carpets to dry, and because the foam was never dispersed evenly, there were clumps of shampoo all over the place that turned into clumps of dried shampoo that remained on the carpet.
However, after using one of these a few times, your rugs tended to just accumulate all the soap that was never appropriately put down or vacuumed up. The soap buildup would deteriorate the fibers in the rug causing lots of damage and even holes. And even with all this soap and scrubbing, the spots were barely affected.
Then came professional cleaning services. Their machines were very similar and they even offered guarantees, but all that meant was that if the stains didn’t come out, you didn’t pay. It was, and is, impossible to guarantee that stains will be removed completely so the results with these professional companies were not much better than when the process was done by us with one of those heavy rental machines.
Suddenly everyone was talking about steam. Steam dryers, steam washing machines, steam presses, and even steam rug shampooers. Because the process relied on the steam to loosen and remove all the dirt, the shampoo could be lighter and milder, no longer threatening to build up and harm your rugs. These new machines could scrub, shampoo and vacuum up the dirty water in the same motion.
Steam models can be found in the $300 range and are worth every penny.
Learn more about carpet and rug cleaning. Stop by Walter Wilhelm’s site where you can find out all about St Louis Carpet Cleaning and what we can do for you.



