Shampooing Carpet

Steam cleaning carpet. That's a misnomer. Actually, it's hot water extraction. You can do it yourself at home. In fact, you're better off doing it yourself. The reason will become clear shortly.

You can rent an extractor from a rent-it-center. Sometimes your local hardware store has them to rent. You can also buy one from a discount department store. There are tank type extractors and uprights. They both work well. You decide what type is better for you.

If you have a lot of carpet to take care of, owning a hot water carpet extractor may be the way to go. You won't have to do all the carpeted areas of your house at one time.

There are other reasons to own, too. If Fluffy the cat or Rover the dog or your partying friends soil the carpet, you can easily clean it up. Your children would never create dirt so I don't need to mention them.

Let's Get to Work

It's carpet cleaning day. Doesn't that send a frizzle of excitement up your spine?

Move as much furniture out of the room as possible. Vacuum thoroughly and use the crevice tool along the baseboards.

Badly soiled areas should be pretreated. Mix an ounce of the carpet shampoo with five ounces of water in a spray bottle and mist the soiled area.

Fill the reservoir with the hottest water you can get from the sink tap. Then add the shampoo that's been formulated to be used in a carpet extractor.

The shampoo should be low-foaming and by putting it in last you won't generate suds. Use no more than one third the recommended amount. In other words, ignore the directions on the bottle.

Visually divide the room to be cleaned into grids. For example, a 10' x 10' room could be divided into two 5' x 10' areas. Start at one corner. Keep the trigger pulled that allows the solution to flow onto the carpet and take long strokes back and forth. Continue until the reservoir is empty.

As the soapy solution flows into the carpet, it is also being suctioned up into the recovery tank along with whatever little gems are hiding between the fibers. The recovery tank will probably need to be emptied more often than the reservoir needs to be refilled.

You're Not Finished Yet

The entire area to be shampooed is clean. This is when the commercial carpet people pack up their gear, wait for you to pay them and leave.

In a very short period of time, your carpet is dirty again!

That's because soap attracts dirt.

Some Common Sense Here

When you take a shower you rinse before toweling dry. When you wash the dishes you rinse them or the dishwasher goes into a rinse cycle. Your clothes washer has at least one rinse cycle.

So, you need to rinse your carpet.

Rinse the reservoir tank until there is no more soapy water. Then fill it with cold water. Cold water cuts soap.

Once again, go over the area that you've shampooed. Do it repeatedly until the recovery tank is no longer picking up soap. Then do it one more time but only extract. That way you've picked up almost all of the water that's been left in the carpet.

Let the carpet dry thoroughly before walking on it. If you must place furniture on it, put a piece of plastic wrap under the legs of the furniture.

Your carpet will stay cleaner for a much longer period of time if you follow these steps.

Hot water extraction machines come with at least one attachment. Use the upholstery attachment to clean the stairs. Follow the same step by step procedure

Other Methods

Every few years a different way of cleaning carpet comes on the market. Most of them involve sprinkling a chemically treated sawdust-like material over the carpet and using an applicator to work it into the nap. After allowing it to penetrate for a specified amount of time, you vacuum it up.

Institutions and commercial buildings often use the "bonnet" method. The "bonnet" is a loosely woven yarn pad with an elastic band around the edge. This pad is soaked in a shampoo solution and thoroughly wrung out. It's then placed on the bottom of a buffer and moves in a circular motion over the area to be cleaned. It's an effective quick-fix remedy because it has removed the surface dirt.

Carpet Wear

All carpet has nap whether it's tightly woven commercial carpet or luxurious velvet plush. Carpet usually doesn't wear out from the top down. It happens from the bottom up.

There are certain traffic patterns that people walk whether it's in your home, at an office, in an airport or in a department store. As traffic flows over the same area, debris from shoes, wheels, or whatever is being run over the carpet is being deposited and ground into the carpet.

Seen under a microscope, dirt and debris is not round and smooth. It has sharp barbs and edges. Those sharp points act like knives that go straight to the base of the yarn where the fabric has been woven into the backing. Eventually, the yarn is weakened and flattens. When that happens, the carpet begins to look worn.

Pamper Your Carpet

By vacuuming often, you're pulling up a lot of the dirt and therefore extending its life. By shampooing and rinsing using the extraction method, you're accomplishing the same thing.

Carpet is expensive. Retailers used to price it by the square yard. Now it's priced by the square foot to make it seem more affordable. To arrive at the square yard price, you have to multiply the square foot price by nine.

Hot water extraction will not hurt your carpet. Just the opposite, it will keep your carpet looking new longer.

Carpeting a room or a whole house is a major investment. Give it the care it deserves.