Country House Carpet Care

How to look after your carpets

Vacuuming

Vacuum your carpet frequently with a vacuum with a high efficiency collection bag or system. In high traffic areas, carpet manufacturers recommend you vacuum at least once or twice a week.  Vacuuming removes the sharp and abrasive soil that can cut, scratch, and abrade the fibre causing premature wear. Particulate soiling left in your carpet has sandpaper like effect on the construction of the carpet. Much of this soil is not visible to the eye. Vacuum before the carpet looks soiled. Remove any loose particles such as loose food, leaves, pieces of crayon, bugs, etc. as these items can cause a spot on the carpet. Keep your vacuum in good working condition – check the belts and change the collection bag frequently.

Spot and Spill Treatments

Immediate spot removal is the key to a clean carpet. Great care also must be taken in how spot cleaning is performed. When a carpet is new, or has sufficient protector on it, plain tap water will remove many spots. However for those spots that will not move easily with water, you must use a spotting solution specifically designed for carpeting. Most spot removers that are purchased over the counter leave too much soap residue and can cause rapid resoiling or yellowing. Avoid using foam carpet cleaners or any product that is not made specifically for carpet. The longer the spot is allowed to dwell on the carpet, the more chance there is of permanent discolouration. Blot up any excess spill. Apply spot cleaner sparingly to white terry cloth and gently massage spot causing it to transfer into the cloth. Never pour spot cleaner directly on carpet. Blot area with water. If the spot persists, consult your professional carpet cleaner. Some spots and spills require the professional equipment, cleaning, solutions, and skills of a professional. Repeated attempts to remove the spot may set the stain or cause permanent damage.

Professional Cleaning

As a general rule for residential carpeting, cleaning by a professional, trained, certified firm should take place about once per year. For extremely heavy traffic areas, homes with pets, and homes with people with allergic sensitivities, cleaning may be required more often. Proper professional cleaning will not leave a sticky residue behind and can be done as many times per year as needed. Professional cleaning with hot water extraction cleaning is the method most often recommended by cleaning industry experts and carpet manufacturers. Professional cleaning removes the damaging soil from the traffic areas that vacuuming has not been able to remove. Not all professional cleaning firms adhere to industry standards for properly cleaning your carpet or carpet manufacturer cleaning guidelines. Our company is trained and certified by the IICRC in the proper cleaning of all types of carpets. Rest assured, your satisfaction is our guarantee.

For commercial carpeting, periodic professional cleaning with hot water extraction may need to be combined with interim low moisture encapsulation cleaning for maximum carpet appearance and performance. The frequency of cleaning will depend on the amount and types of soiling, the traffic load on the carpeting, carpet owner considerations, budget considerations, and other indoor and outdoor environmental conditions.

Protective Treatments

Domestic carpets are often treated with stain and soil resistant treatments when they are manufactured.  These protective treatments will wear and traffic off over a period of time.. After a period of 1 to 2 years, carpet manufacturers recommend the re-application of a protective treatment to enhance the performance of your carpet.. You should consider having a professional carpet cleaner re-apply the treatment after professional cleaning. The soil resistor will help the soil slide off of the carpet easier when vacuuming, spots will be easier to remove, and professional cleaning will be more effective.

Paul Pearce

Sometimes stains that have been hidden by soil are revealed after cleaning. These stains, which did not immediately cause discolouration, are often from spilled liquid containing colourless sugar that remained on the fibres. After long exposure to the air, they changed to insoluble brown stains. The stains may look like brownish discolourations, but often they remain unnoticed because of the accumulated soil covering them. Some food and drink stains may inevitably turn even darker from the necessary drying action after a thorough cleaning.

Other kinds of stains can be caused by water soaking through and dissolving materials that cause browning, or dissolving fugitive dyes from the back of the carpet, rug or upholstery. Because the fibres act as wicks, moisture will rise to the surface to evaporate, and discolouration will be left. Consumers who try to remove stains by using the wrong cleaning compounds and procedures may only make the stained areas more noticeable.

As professional cleaners we use specialty cleaning and stain removal treatments to improve the appearance of forgotten drink spills – cola, coffee, tea, alcoholic beverages, soda and others. Even with the best treatments, some coloured residue or caramelized sugar stain resulting from the prior spillage may remain.

To lessen the possibility of stain damage, immediate action should be taken. It is helpful if you take the following steps:-

Thoroughly absorb all moisture and, when possible, put a half-inch thickness of clean, white absorbent material, such as paper or cloth towelling, over the area and weight it down.

Keep replacing with fresh absorbent material and repeat as needed.

Old Wives’ Tales

1. My carpet will soil quicker after cleaning

There is historically a lot of truth in this. Early carpet shampoos were cationic, ie they had a positive electrical charge. The sticky residues were strongly attached to both the carpet fibre and newly introduced soils. This wasn’t so much of a problem with wool, but was a nightmare with the (then) ‘revolutionary’ new carpet fibre Nylon. These shampoos were quickly superseded by newer generations, which dried to harder crystals, which were more easily vacuumed away upon completion of drying. Modern technology has virtually eliminated this problem as long as the correct solutions are used for any given carpet/yarn/fibre combination.

2. Carpets can take up to a week to dry

Over wetting is as common today as in the past. It maybe due to under-performing equipment, inappropriate cleaning systems, poor technique or simply under drying, the results are always the same. I’m not comfortable with the term Over Wetting as this statement implies that too much water has been used. I much prefer to use Under Drying, which is more appropriate. Good drying is dependent upon the specification of the equipment, the skill of the technician and the drying environment post-clean. Depending upon the many variables involved, a correctly cleaned carpet will dry within hours, not days.

3. Cleaning will strip all of the natural oils from my wool carpet

There have been many tales of carpets, especially with wool yarns, looking dull, lifeless and being hard to the touch after being cleaned. This isn’t caused by the cleaning itself it’s caused by poor cleaning. Lanolin is the natural oil/grease found on wool. It’s removed during processing, if it wasn’t removed dye would not take to the fibre and the carpet would soil rapidly. According to NCCA Industry Partner The Woolsafe Organisation, “Good scouring results in residual wool grease contents (and hence lanolin contents) well below 1%”.  So this tells us that there is hardly any natural oil left in finished wool. The primary reason for the degradation of wool fibres post clean is the inappropriate use of harsh, aggressive cleaning solutions. The correct use of ‘safe for wool’ cleaning chemistry will eliminate this problem.

4. Cleaning will shrink my carpets

This is a potential problem that is as relevant today as in the past. Cleaning will shrink some types of carpet, but can be avoided or controlled if the knowledge gained from your NCCA training is applied correctly. It is predominantly woven carpets that shrink. Your pre-cleaning inspection will reveal the type of construction and fibres used in the carpet. If your conclusion is that a carpet has the potential for shrinkage, you will need to check the security of the fitting and fittings and use an appropriate cleaning system and technique. Drying should be completed in the shortest time possible. The carpet may tighten, but it will not shrink.