What I Learned At Carpet School
Max WRIGHT, Certified Carpet Cleaning Technician.
We
live in a giant pond of air—just like fish, only we are heavier
than air and sink back to the bottom every time we try to fly.
Each room in your home is like a giant aquarium. Convection currents form in the air by heating and cooling, and by agitation caused by movements of occupants. Air rises to the ceiling and falls back down the sides, crossing the floor to join the next rise to the ceiling in the middle of the room.
The air in our aquariums contains gases, dead skin and other detritus (called dander), volatile organic compounds, and other bio-pollutants. The air is deflected as it hits the floor, and some of the dirt sticks to the floor near the skirting boards, and the rest is either deposited across the rest of the floor, or continues to cycle around the room as it ‘breathes’.
Carpet is sound-absorbent and pleasant to walk on—even in bare feet—but a prime purpose has long been to collect and hide dirt. Carpet collects dirt by brushing the air as it passes over the pile and tucking the dirt away between the fibres as we walk past, or piling it up near the skirting boards. But that is only half of the story. If we don't clean the carpet filter at the bottom of our air aquariums, like any other filter it will fill up and return dirt to the air.
How do we clean the filter? There is only one way—mechanically. We can take the carpet outside and beat the dirt out (or throw the carpet in the tip and replace it), but nowadays we have ways of mechanically removing the dirt from our carpets.
We suck it out with machines which create a low pressure effect—know as vacuuming. Every in-situ carpet cleaning process eventually comes down to sucking. A really good vacuum cleaner can remove more than 75% of the dirt. So we should clean our floor filters by vacuuming them every day.
To suck out the last 25%, first we need to release it from the carpet fibres (de-flocculation). Then we need to suspend the dirt in a liquid medium (emulsification). We use water as the emulsifying medium and surfactants (aka detergents) to break the surface tension of the water to make it work better.
Surfactants can be positively, negatively or not charged. The carpet cleaning industry have found that surfactants should be negatively or non-charged, as most dirt is positively charged, and as we know, opposites attract. So the remaining 25% of the dirt is removed, but it does takes extra effort to suck it from the carpet.
Some of these methods are:-
Absorbent Powder Method—dampened powder is agitated into the carpet and then vacuumed out; usually by the home owner between treatments.
Rotary Shampoo Method—shampoo prespray and fresh cold water rinse.
Bonnet Cleaning Method—brushes are covered by a cloth bonnet.
Dry Foam Shampoo—pre-sprayed and shampooed with a cold water vacuum rinse.
Mist and Brush Method—an emulsifier is agitated into the top of the carpet face fibres by rotary brushes. It is allowed to dry and is then vacuumed.
Hot water extraction—the carpet is pre-sprayed and then hot water-rinsed. Several further dry passes are made with the wand to suck up any free water.
The method which does the best job of getting it all out is the hot water extraction method, and it should be carried out once or twice a year in conjunction with other, less expensive methods.
There may also be stains in the carpet which can be treated by a trained carpet cleaning technician using solvents, enzymes and other specialty cleaners, but these should be rinsed out by hot water extraction.
People with respiratory ailments, such as asthma, should never take out their carpet filters. A study in Dr Berry’s book ‘Protecting the Built Environment’ showed that sufferers who removed their carpets from their homes had a worse outcome than those who chose to keep their carpets clean.
There are six types of carpet face fibre available today if we don't include sisal, which is impossible to clean. They are cotton/jute, polyester, polypropylene (olefin), acrylic, wool and nylon.
Cotton and jute being vegetable, often shrink when wet, deforming the carpet.
Polyester and acrylic are very soft and melt at low temperatures—even dragging furniture across them can leave melt marks!
Olefin loves oil and is hard to clean without risk of damage.
Wool is an animal product and therefore has a low pH (acidic). As dirt is also acidic, any cleaner which is alkaline and attacks the dirt will also attack the wool. Acid washes are required for wool carpets. Water does not shrink wool, however; otherwise sheep would be very uncomfortable when it rains! What can shrink wool carpets is when the primary or secondary backing contains cotton or jute (jute is untreated cotton), —which can shrink if it gets wet. The attraction of wool carpets is that they feel superb to the hand (or the feet), but they can also ‘felt‘ or mat if not treated carefully by the carpet cleaning technician.
Nylon is far and away the most popular carpet material. There has been massive research and development into nylon, now in its sixth generation. Nylon carpet now boasts a fibre cross-section which reflects light better, has built-in anti-static, built-in stain repellents (like Scotchguard) and acid dye resistors to resist stains from food and beverages. Nylon carpet can be bleached by benzoyl peroxide as used in acne medication. It is itself acid-dyed and can be affected by acidic spills like vomit, urine or faeces. Therefore you should prevent teenagers from vomiting, etc., on your nylon carpet. The carpet cleaning technician may be able to treat everything but the bleaching! The carpet filter acts like a brush, so loop piles work less effectively than cut piles, which present a more ‘brush-like’ interface to the passing polluted and dirty air.
Call Max now on mobile 0409 692 003.
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