Carpet Cleaning

The best method for keeping your carpet clean actually begins before you plan to clean the carpet. Preventative maintenance, or preventative care is the method of taking steps to prevent dirt from effecting your carpet. You can use things such as mats and regularly vacuuming to prevent dirt from building up. A thorough clean is recommended if your carpet is starting to look dirty and discoloured. Although you can take the DIY approach to this, it is better to hire a professional as carpet cleaning is hard work and things can easily go wrong, causing damage to your carpet. During carpet cleaning there are four main principals that are used each time; dry soil removal, soil suspension, extraction, and drying. 
 
 Dry Soil Removal 
 
 Simply put, this means vacuuming the carpet before using a carpet cleaner. You need go over the carpet thoroughly over and over again  to remove any excess dry soil. Doing this before hiring a cleaner will likely only remove up to 60%. You need to aim to remove as much as possible before hiring a carpet cleaner. This is because carpet cleaning chemicals cannot dissolve dry soils. They are insoluble, and if large particles are trapped in the carpet fibres, chemicals will not be able to affect them. However, smaller particles will be taken care of in the next step. If you've vacuumed your carpet and gave it an intense clean but your carpet is still looking dirty, don't worry. Vacuuming your carpet also helps to separate the carpet fibres, which makes the next steps much more effective. 
 
 Soil Suspension 
 
 Suspension is the term given to particles that don't quite fully dissolve in a liquid, but are soluble enough to be retained within it. This is the case with dry soil. If left to sit, any water used to clean carpets would develop a layer of dirt at the bottom, as the particles settle. By this point, the dirt will no longer be on your carpet, therefore suspension is the perfect method for 'lifting' the dirt up. Within soil suspension itself, there are four main factors that must be considered. 
 
 Time

Any cleaning products used on the carpet will need time to start breaking down the soil and dissolving it. You need to make sure that it is not left to sit for too long, if so then the soil will settle again rendering this step pointless. For the best results, the cleaning products are normally applied straight to the carpet and left for a few minutes. 

Agitation 

To prevent soil from settling, and to help along the dissolution of particles, agitation is essential in carpet cleaning. Scrub the carpet with a pile rake or brush. This will separate carpet fibres and allowing the chemicals to work on breaking down the insoluble soil particles.  

 Chemical 

The chemicals used greatly impact the effectiveness of the clean. Even if all other three factors are increased you will not get the best results if poor quality or too little cleaning products are applied. On the other hand, you would think that more products would equal a better clean. This is not correct. Too much chemicals used will leave residue on your carpet and cause it to attract dirt much more quickly than before. This is also the same for mixing chemicals in order to achieve multiple effects. When combined some chemicals will bond together, leaving a residue, or damage the carpet and shorten it's lifespan. 

 Temperature 

For every 18°C increase over 140°C the cleaning effectiveness doubles. Particles will move quicker and aid the dissolution of particles if an increase in temperature has taken place. This should actually come from the carpet cleaning machine. If you want to increase the activity of the cleaning chemicals and further aiding the suspension process, the steam is normally produced by the cleaner, ans this is applied to the carpet directly. 
 
 Extraction 
 
 You then need to ensure that you extract the carpet cleaning chemicals and water from the carpet. This is an extremely important step to complete once the clean is done. As above, any residue left behind will cause problems further down the line so it is important to lift this straight away. Separate wet/dry vacuums are able to do this, however a lot of carpet cleaner have a built-in extraction method. 
 
 Drying 
 
 This is one of the most important steps of the process. If the carpet is not dried properly then all of the work you have done from the steps above will be pointless. After cleaning, a carpet must be fully dried within 8 hours, or mould will develop. This can be done by using heating or fans.