Carpet Care Tips: Contributors To Longevity

Approximately $13.5 billion is spent each year on cleaning supplies, according to estimates by Dade Paper Co., Atlanta. And $121 billion is spent on needed labor. So it stands to reason that proper care of carpets — beyond the routine regimen of vacuuming and extracting — can reduce maintenance costs, plus extend a carpet’s longevity.

Terry Rogers, who has 14 years of experience in the carpet cleaning business, is Dade’s chemical sales manager: “Proper carpet care means preventing soil from getting into it, vacuuming regularly, spotting as necessary, and initiating a planned program of soil removal, which includes both interim maintenance and restorative cleaning,” he explains.

For effective carpet care, prevention is key. However, sometimes spots and spills slip through. Rogers’ favorite spotting product is a water-soluble spotter the company private labels. “There’s no color or fragrance and it works on any water-soluble stain, which includes a lot of oil-based products, primarily food-related oil. It works on lipstick, washable ink, even on dyes if you get to it quick. Plus you can use it on upholstery.”

Most carpet care professionals agree that proper maintenance can extend the life of carpets. And they agree that soils are best removed as soon as they enter a building — or sooner.

Successful dry soil removal, according to Rogers, involves the use of walk-off mats, vacuuming and lifting the pile.

“Mats should stop soil and water at the door. The most effective ones present an opportunity to scrape and wipe one’s shoes to prevent the maximum amount of contaminants. They also store soil and water for removal. The best ones are designed to provide a place for soil and water to prevent that water from spreading to the surrounding floor and creating a slip or fall hazard. They also minimize tracking of soil and water. To provide a safe surface, the mats should be slip-resistant, too.”

Dade’s commercial carpet care program involves daily, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual comprehensive care that will keep the appearance level of the carpeting acceptable, but more importantly, will extend carpet life.

For heavily trafficked areas, the company recommends daily vacuuming and/or pile brushing. Salespeople recommend weekly bonnet cleaning, spot removal, and changing or cleaning walk-off mats. On a monthly basis they suggest reviewing traffic areas for possible extraction cleaning and they recommend quarterly extraction cleaning of traffic lanes. Carpets in non-traffic areas should be shampooed twice a year, and once a year the overall carpet should be extraction cleaned.

As regimented as most carpet care is, there are occasionally products that come along that make cleaners’ jobs easier. Rogers says one of the biggest trends in carpet cleaning products he’s seen is the do-it-all “oxygen” spotters and cleaners.

“They’re pretty much ‘green’ products at pretty good prices. They do OK, but people need to be properly educated when using them.”

Extractor Options
Jerry Lance of Dart Maintenance and Supply, Miami Shores, Fla., is another carpet care veteran who advocates dry cleaning of carpets and the use of walk-off mats. His 35 years of experience has taught him to rely on dry cleaning.

“I’m sold on dry cleaning, although we do utilize extraction,” he says.

Dry extraction is one option. “The method allows you to deep clean carpets anytime without getting them wet so there’s no need to take them out of service for a long period of time,” Lance explains.

Some systems available today use millions of tiny, absorbent sponge-like particles that contain water and cleaning agents which deep clean by dissolving and trapping greasy, oily dirt. The systems remove dry dirt, lift the pile, deep clean carpets and remove spots and spills.

“You can’t harm a carpet if you use that system. You may not get all the spots initially but repeating the treatment will do it.”

How does Lance remove or hide the peskiest of spots, burns and stains? “Depending on the carpet and how plush it is, you can sometimes take and shape the carpet. And depending on the type of stain, there are enough chemicals on the market today from which to choose.

“Mineral spirits won’t damage the carpet unless you put too much of it down. So you can’t go hog wild.”

Some venues pose more challenging cleaning problems than others.

Lance believes restaurants have the most chronic carpet problems, but other types of facilities are not immune. “[Restaurants] are among the worst because of food spills. Commercial buildings without walk-off mats also pose big problems because of mud —rainy days are especially bad here in south Florida. Schools are tough, too, because they don’t normally have a good after-hours clearing program. The kids bring in a lot of sand and their carpets need to be extracted really well to do the job right. And you have to force dry them with blowers, and dry clean them to remove any soap residue.”

Lance also thinks automobile dealership showrooms and lobbies of office buildings are candidates for carpet problems. “They shouldn’t have carpets. Factories, too. There’s usually grease on their floors, so they should always allow for a large walk-off area, be it ceramic or vinyl tile. People have shoes with rubber soles these days. Because most carpets today are synthetic, they absorb the oil from those shoes, which tends to leave a yellow stain.”

What’s Lance’s No. 1 recommendation to his customers? “If it’s residential carpeting, I tell them to remove their shoes. Obviously they pick up grease and oil that transfers to the carpeting. For the commercial sector, I strongly suggest using walk-off mats.”

The Match Game
Tim Lucas, the president of Star Maintenance Supply Co., San Gabriel, Calif., doesn’t think there’s one do-it-all carpet-cleaning product out there, “in spite of some claims by manufacturers.” The best way to come up with an effective product, he says, is to match a stain with a chemical designed to handle it, whether it’s grease, oil, blood or fruit juice.

“If it’s an unknown stain, I usually use a pH tape to determine the pH and find a cleaner with the opposite pH to neutralize that stain.”

Star Maintenance does a lot of business with health-care organizations and schools. These market sectors, Lucas says, have carpeting when they really shouldn’t. “The stains that occur on hospital carpets caused by medicines, bodily fluids, etc., are breeding grounds for bacteria. Schools have a lot of standard dirt, grease and food stains.”

Lucas has found that the most common and difficult problems are recurring stains after extraction. “How do we solve that? Basically, after we extract, we do a surface cleaning with a bonnet so we don’t wax the backing of the carpet. That causes the stain to wick back into the fiber. We surface clean and dry it with a floor dryer as quickly as possible. That eliminates any wicking and prevents any recurrence.”

He observes that many people are still using extraction. Spin bonneting is being used in health-care venues because it’s quieter, he says.

Reaction Time
Bob Boffoli, second-generation owner of Cape Cod Vacuum Mart Inc., Orleans, Mass., grew up in the carpet care business. His long experience in the business taught him that walk-off matting is important to ensure carpet longevity. He also advocates slow-and-steady vacuuming.

“A lot of people tend to vacuum carpeting relatively fast, but I tell customers if they vacuum twice as slow, they’ll be twice as fast,” he relates. “By that, I mean they’ll be doing a better job of getting rid of sand and dirt that’s deeply embedded. A carpet can hold three times its weight in sand.”

His advice about spotting or staining is to treat as fast as possible. “The less time you give a stain to set, the better off you are,” he says. “But there are specific stains that require different products. For instance, if you’re dealing with tar or grease you don’t use the same product you’d use to clean up chocolate milk stains. There are a lot of good products with enzymes that will eat stains caused by sour milk, or body wastes.”

Boffoli also advocates dry cleaning systems to maintain carpets, especially in high-traffic areas.

“Use excellent maintenance systems to improve the overall appearance and longevity of carpets,” he recommends, “and be sure to maintain carpets in high-traffic areas.” His suggested cleaning regimen: For entrance areas, treat spots and stains monthly with dry powders; for traffic lanes, do so every three months. For other areas, treat annually — more or less, depending on traffic.