Today we were called out to a customer who had hired a carpet cleaning machine in order clean the carpets himself. This took him a whole day of hard work to collect the machine and work out how to use it, followed by the noisy and backbreaking work on the carpets. Then after all this effort and expense the carpets took days to dry and starts smelling awful and looking worse than before.

He opted to call us in to help with the situation.

At the end of our 9 stage cleaning process he was surprised and very pleased with the results we had achieved for him, now looking refreshed and clean and smelling fresh again. This is a great example of why hire/domestic use machines are not powerful enough to do the job of the professionals.

This means it is all too easy to put too much product into your carpets and then not be able to pull all of it back out, thus leaving you with a sticky residue and the dampness left behind causing a further issue of bacterial growth followed by a subsequent  smell.  The sticky residue that is left by domestic cleaning machines is due to the inferior products available that have a high pH which may initially improve the look of the carpets but with time this just attracts more dirt than before. Much of this is caused by trying to clean the carpets in one stage compared to our 9 stages outlined below.

Our 9 stage process works to get your carpets as clean as possible;

  1. Starting with testing and inspections to industry standards to ascertain the fabric and type of carpet.
  2. Then a thorough dry vacuum with our powerful upright professional vacuum cleaners removing the dry material from the carpets. It has been proven that up to 80% of the dirt in carpets is the dry material, so it is important to remove this before wetting the carpet.
  3. We then select the correct pre-treatment product for your carpet fibres and the type of soiling, if it is wool we will use a wool safe product. Our pre-sprays have anti-bacterial properties built in and all environmentally safe for the environment, children and pets.
  4. This is then agitated deep into the carpet with contra-rotating brushes to work the product into the fibres to emulsify the remaining soils
  5. Allowing the products the correct amount of dwell time before rinsing this out with hot pressurised water solution sprayed deep down and recovered immediately with incredibly powerful vacuums leaving the carpets slightly damp. Subsequent dry passes remove as much moisture and remaining dirt as possible. The rinse solution we use acts to neutralise the pH of any cleaning product and instead of leaving a sticky residue like domestic products would in fact adds some protection to the fibres to repel dirt and therefore stay clean for longer.  If required we can also add and anti-bactericide and deodoriser at this stage or additional carpet protection to repel dirt and prolong the life of your carpet.
  6. Next we will treat any stains that maybe remaining with our expertise and large array of products if we can’t remove the stain then no-one can.
  7. Brushing the pile to set the pile correctly and gives the best final appearance which also aids drying.
  8.  Install air movers to speed drying whilst cleaning other areas or carrying out the final steps
  9.  Final inspection with the client to ensure satisfaction and explain why it may not have been possible to remove any remaining stains.
In summary hire machines such as a Rug doctor or domestic machines such as Bissel or Vax don’t have nearly as much vacuum power to remove the solution put into the carpet. The cleaning solutions of these leave a sticky residue and may not be wool safe. The process takes many stages to remove as much soil as possible not just the one pass. These are the main reasons why paying a professional who has years of experience, undertaken numerous training courses and has access to the best equipment and cleaning products is going to achieve a far better finish than trying to do it yourself. The choice is yours….
We are an Advanced member of the NCCA and also a member of the government endorsed Trustmark so you can be sure we are fully trained, insured and abide by their code of conduct.