I know what to do with my dirty carpets. I will get a hire machine. How difficult can it be?

In the immortal words of the robot in Lost in Space “Danger Will Robinson!”

We have just finished a job recently that confirmed a theme maintained by many professional carpet cleaning company owners and their technicians. Hire machines actually make work for professional carpet cleaning companies.

This may sound like clever bravado but time and again we have proved that home owners who have rented machines and cleaned their carpets are engaged in a downward spiral of grubby carpets getting grubbier with each ‘clean’. Eventually they despair and call in a professional.

The lightweight machines rented out in the UK (mostly the same models/machines as used in the US market but 240v instead of the 120v used Stateside) are actually pretty good at the first part of the job.

They spread a luke-warm soapy solution very effectively around the carpet (sometimes with a revolving brush head) which makes sure this soapy solution is worked well into the carpet, and thus ensuring that your carpet now has a dirty, soapy scum on the ‘face fibre’ of the carpet. Any really dirty areas will have the dirt moved elsewhere and transferred to other, cleaner parts of the carpet.

You have to use the very soapy products that the hire machine company sells because they say you must only use their products in their machine. This is clearly just plain wrong because no mere liquid is going to damage the inner workings of what is in effect a wet vacuum system with filters and safeguards to stop liquids or foam reaching the electric vacuum motors. But they charge a great deal of money for these soapy products and they make a great deal of money out of selling a fairly cheap product. It is a win/win ‘solution’ for them.

If you are a consumer of these products/rental services though it is a lose/lose situation and I will now explain why.

While these machines are relatively efficient at spreading the soapy solution around the fibres of your carpet (gravity also helps it do the job thoroughly) they are very inadequate when it comes to recovering and rinsing the soapy solution. No amount of going back and forward will improve the situation as the vacuums and rinsing actions are just not up to the job of recovering the dirty ‘slurry’ that you are creating on the carpet surface. Each subsequent rinsing action/vacuum run just adds more water and makes a good result even less likely.

The result of this is that you may partially recover some of the soapy, dirty scum that you have just spread all over your carpet but unfortunately you will leave most of it embedded in the carpet where because of the action of the detergents it has the appearance of having ‘cleaned’ the carpet. It has of course done nothing of the sort as each fibre is now coated with a soapy ‘jacket’ that dries but still attracts dirt and soil like a magnet for anything being walked into your house on a daily basis.

If this were not bad enough you have at the same time effectively removed your carpets natural ability (in it’s clean state) to shed soil and turn it into dry dust which normally you would simply vacuum up on a regular basis. Carpet cleaning (the proper variety) is designed to strip the attached soil from your carpet fibres that has emulsified and joined with the fibre to make your carpet look dirty and unattractive but which cannot usually be vacuumed up and out of the carpet.

As with the jobs that we see, the carpets that have been poorly cleaned with hire machines end up very soiled indeed and it is as if there is a grey ‘mantle’ or ‘cast’ over the entire carpet – not just where the carpet was dirty in the first place but wherever it has been ‘cleaned’. 

So the remedy to a hire machine disaster is actually rather easy to achieve for a well-equipped operator. The better the standard of 'the rinse' action of the professional carpet cleaners system then the more emulsified soil will be released and extracted from the dirty (i.e. cleaned!) carpet and yet still leaving the carpet relatively dry.

So while I would not wish that everyone goes out and hires one of these machines and then does a dis-service to their carpets I don't really mind if their use increases because I know ultimately that the market for carpet cleaning will continue to grow for this (and other) reason(s).

How often should you do it?

Sorry but this post is not going to be anywhere near as exciting as it may appear from the title.

One of the most basic requirement of a well-run home is cleanliness and most people devote at least some time during each day doing something towards that end. It might be wiping down kitchen surfaces or it might be cleaning the bathroom.

Whether it be wiping down work surfaces or cleaning out a fridge shelf, we all usually want to try to counter the effects our daily lives have on our domestic and work environments.

Quite often people will have a quick run around with the vacuum cleaner in the lounge or in the hallway if they have carpets there.

I am often asked to recommend a vacuum cleaner and people ask what machine it is that we use in our company.

We, like most professional cleaning companies in Europe, use a twin motor Sebo machine which is probably the most highly recommended professional machine bar none - they produce this commercial machine in two widths - a BS36 and a BS46.

The important point is they have two motors - one to drive the brush bar (the sweeper that beats the carpet and vibrates the dust particles to the face of the fibre) and one motor to drive the vacuum which sucks up this dry soil.

In terms of a domestic machine the one I recommend most often for carpet maintenance is the Miele S7210 - this is a very good machine and most importantly it is one of the very few (if not the only one) that has two motors just like the best commercial machines.

 I know I can recommend it because it is the one we use in our own house. It has won at least one Which? consumer test as best vacuum cleaner for domestic use. They are not cheap but show me a really good tool that is!

So here are the two machines side by side - the commercial machine is a dull grey colour (left) and the domestic machine is available in a yellow and several other colours.

So the inevitable question is how often do you do it? Well once a day is not too often but may be seen as a bit OCD so lets say three times a week is good and once a week is not enough. At the end of the day you decide - but first of all get a good vacuum cleaner.

Oh yes and I should add we never recommend Dyson machines - sorry Sir James but you will find most commercial cleaners would not be seen dead with one in their van. And since they stopped manufacturing them in the UK it is much easier to be able to get this off our chests.

We name the guilty...

Just another normal upholstery cleaning job today. Typical in many ways because the homeowners i.e. my clients have done what many, many other carpet and furniture owners have done - they have self-medicated!

It sounds a bit dramatic but I can't think of any other way of describing this obsession people have with cleaning their own carpets and upholstery. Many are called to this job but few are chosen to do it -- properly.

As with today's victim who has fallen for the beautifully labelled bottle of soapy gunk that purports to be the one shot solution to dirty, grubby carpets and upholstery.

The problem is that even if it provides a brief holiday from the grubby appearance of the carpets and soiled furniture, this holiday will last for a very short time indeed.

As soon as the carpet or furniture dries and goes back into normal circulation it will start to 'grub-up' much quicker than normal because the soapy residue left behind by the amateur textile technician is now actually attracting dirt!

Soon the furniture is looking worse than ever and needs cleaning again - so the instant supermarket-bought remedies come out from under the sink and the cycle begins again - except this time there is more gunk on the furniture and carpets than before and hence the problem just gets worse.

I am not saying there is anything inherently wrong with these products - but then I would not say that outright as I do not want to be sued by these multi-national behemoths - it is just that the products have the capacity firstly to be overused and secondly to be wrongly applied and thirdly to not be rinsed out after they have done their job.

I do feel that 'doing their job' does not really cover the effect they have on carpet and upholstery. Undoubtedly the greatest problem is the residual product left in the carpet or on the upholstery and this can only be solved by the rinsing action - this rinsing action almost never happens to the degree required to flush all the product out of the fibres being cleaned - hence the problem.

This is not an exhaustive list but the products include:  Vanish, 1001, Rug Doctor Pro, Vax AAA, Tesco Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, Sainsbury Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, Essential Waitrose Carpet Cleaner

See the difference - no really!

We clean a lot of end-of-tenancy properties - especially when the seasons start to turn in our part of the world (the New Forest, UK) and winter 'long' lets give way to shorter holiday lets and vice versa in the autumn.

Usually the holiday visitors treat their temporary home with respect and care - but we do get called on to clean carpets and hard floors at some stage during the 'season' to keep the properties looking pristine for the next guests.

The winter 'long' lets present a different sort of challenge as often the longer-term temporary residents are less than careful with the furnishings which may not have been in the greatest condition when they moved in. Memories are short with such things.

Sometimes people do forget how clean the property was when they moved in. One thing is for sure we don't often find a black-top* in a residential property - but the following video shows they do happen.

*A black-top is the humourous name the industry reserves for sticky (black) restaurant and pub carpets