SMART Carpet Care Tips
Removing Spots and Spills
Removing Spots and Spills – More Info
How Often Should I Get My Carpets Cleaned?
How Come My Walkways Get Dirty so Quickly and Spots Come Back?
My Carpet Cleaning Company Said I Need to Put on a Carpet Protectant, Like Scotch Guard, or My Carpet Will Get Dirty Real Fast. Is that True?
How do you Remove Candle Wax?
Walk Off Mats
How to Reduce the #1 Caus of Carpet Dingyness – Residues
How to Reduce the #1 Cause of Carpet Wear – Dry Soil
Things you Should Know
REMOVING SPOTS AND SPILLS
Careful, most spotter products leave residues that attract dirt and some will change the color of the carpet. For food, beverage, and pet spots we recommend Motsenbocker’s Lift-Off #1. It is very effective, doesn’t leave residues, is Green Cross Certified and will break down into water, carbon dioxide and simple minerals. Just spray lightly, allow a few minutes then agitate with a towel. Repeat as necessary. For beverage spills that contain colors, immediately blot up, dilute with a little water and blot again to minimize the absorption.
REMOVING SPOTS AND SPILLS – MORE INFO
The Carpet Cleaner’s handbook has 35 pages on spot removal, plus 4 chapters related to it. It can get REALLY complex! We like keeping things simple, so we have three simple but important recommendations.
1. First, keep in mind that spots that have no “color” and are shades of gray nearly always remove successfully. Spots that are lighter in color than the carpet color means a color loss has taken place and they are permanent. Only re-dying can restore these spots.
2. Anything that has color, like red coolaid or wine, cosmetics, rust, furnisher stains, or ink is a serious problem because now the carpet is dyed a new color. The most important thing you can do is to blot up immediately and not use any cleaning or spotting products on it (see below). Keep in mind even professional attempts are often unsuccessful because most carpet fibers lock in the dye, so minimize the problem by getting to it quickly. Special note: Never use water or a cleaning product on spilled toner. Vacuum it up immediately.
3. We recommend you don’t use common spotters or cleaning products because they often 1) leave residues that turn grey in tone and attract dirt 2) lock in and set the stain making it impossible to remove 3) cause color shift in the carpet 4) have optical brightners that make the area lighter than the surrounding carpet. Before you use any product you should test it out before using it.
We use and highly recommend Motsenbocker’s Lift-Off #1. It is good for all your food related stains and pet stains which is the vast majority of spots that occur in a home. It does not cause any of the problems listed in #3, is Green Cross Certified, and biodegrades into carbon dioxide, water, and simple minerals. It is sold in selected retail stores or you can purchase it from us.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I GET MY CARPETS CLEANED?
General Guideline: Adults only 1X/yr. Adults with children: 2X/yr. Adults with Children and pets 2X/yr or more. Factors that increase the need for more frequent carpet cleaning are if you have very light colored carpet, wearing shoes in the house, not wearing socks, inadequate walk off mats at garage and main entrance, and infrequent vacuuming
A common mistake is to clean all your carpeted areas each time you have carpet cleaning done. The correct way is to have your high use areas, like entries, hallways, family room and any other high use area done more frequently than other areas. Usually this means twice a year and it will be at a reduced cost to a full house clean. You should also keep in mind that carpet should be solution cleaned only where there has been foot traffic or spots or spills. Areas under furniture or beds accumulate dust and should be vacuumed. This again will save some costs and the hassle of moving furnishings.
HOW COME MY WALKWAYS GET DIRTY SO QUICKLY AND SPOTS COME BACK?
Traffic areas get dirty quickly after cleaning because of a long drying time and because the residues left behind by poor cleaning methods causes soil to stick to the carpet. Spots come back mostly because when the carpet is soaked using the steam method the backing where spills end up wick back to the top as the carpet slowly dries.
MY CARPET CLEANING COMPANY SAID I NEED TO PUT ON A CARPET PROTECTANT, LIKE SCOTCH GUARD, OR MY CARPET WILL GET DIRTY REAL FAST. IS THAT TRUE?
Quite often when carpet is not cleaned correctly dirt attracting residues are left behind by the cleaning process, causing carpet to get soiled quickly. A protectant may help in minimizing the problem. The correct solution is to use a process that does not create this problem. Protectants should be used when you want to minimize wear and achieve greater stain resistance.
HOW DO YOU REMOVE CANDLE WAX?
The solution is amazingly simple and effective. You need an iron, a towel, and a spray bottle with water in it. Heat up the iron on steam setting. Wet the towel and ring it out. Spray water over the area that has candle wax. Put the wet towel over it and the iron on the towel. After about 10-15 seconds lift the towel and you should be able to just wipe the wax, which is now a liquid, away with a towel. You may need to repeat this procedure a second time. If the candle wax had color and there are specialized methods to release it.
WALK OFF MATS
Minimizing the soil entering your house is the job of the walk off mat. For outside the house use courser mats to remove the larger particles on the shoes. Inside the house a mat 6-10 feet in length made of carpet material is ideal. This will greatly reduce the amount of soil that gets tracked onto the household carpet.
HOW TO REDUCE THE #1 CAUSE OF CARPET DINGYNESS – RESIDUES
If you eliminate residues from carpet cleaning products you will have a healthier carpet that stays clean longer and the colors will be brighter. You eliminate residues by selecting a cleaning process that uses very little cleaning agents and doesn’t leave them behind.
HOW TO REDUCE THE #1 CAUSE OF CARPET WEAR – DRY SOIL
Vacuuming removes dry soil from carpet. To get good results you have to have a good vacuum. We highly recommend the Dyson. You must also do it frequently.
Entrances and high traffic areas should be vacuumed once per week, more often if you have children in the house, and even more frequently if you have pets that shed hair. Also remember to catch the areas you don’t do routinely, like the edges along baseboards or under the beds, periodically. Quiz: What is the biggest filter in your house? Ans.: Your carpet.
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Sometimes carpets don’t look real clean or like new after they have been cleaned but yet are actually clean. Here are some of the reasons why.
Dark areas or traffic lane grey is caused by scratches or distortions. Scratches are caused by soil containing silicates which have razor-sharp edges that etch the fiber. Scratches on the fiber surface cause a dull appearance that will look like soil. You can minimize the scratches by vacuuming more often. Fiber distortion due to wear will cause light to reflect at different degrees and angles instead of uniformly, thus heightening the visual perception of soiling. This condition is referred to as matting, flaring, or tip compression. The loss of tip definition looks dramatically different from untrafficked areas such as along walls.
Shading, water marks, pooling and nap reversal are distortions which develop in the pile and are in cut pile only. According to carpet manufacturers, the cause is unknown and not considered a mill defect. Steam cleaning may temporarily improve the appearance but it always comes back.
Corn rowing occurs only in cut pile carpet and is a phenomenon in which alternating rows of tufts bend over to fill in density voids in the carpet, thus creating a row like effect at right angles to the traffic patterns. According to carpet manufacturers, this is not a mill defect.
Reflections and shadows are caused by reflections which make the carpet look light or dark due to different light sources. Examples would be: Light fixtures, shades and window coverings, reflections from shining objects such as mirrors, chrome, chair legs, and walls.
