Carpets have always served an important home interior function. It’s a major investment that gives some touch of luxury to our home, especially when mix and matched well with other interior decor. But often times, cleaning has always been an issue for many because of the difficulty of the chore, not to mention the risk of damaging your carpet. This is why experts recommend bringing them to a professional carpet cleaner. There are also many carpet cleaning equipment available in the market, but it is important that you get some background on the different methods of carpet cleaning.
Carpet cleaning methods are basically categorized into five. These include shampooing, dry foam, bonnet, dry powder and hot water extraction. Shampooing is the oldest carpet cleaning method. It is a process that employs some cleaning solution that turns to foam while it is being scrubbed by a rotary brush. This foam attracts dirt and soil, which will dry in a few hours into a manageable residue, then will be vacuumed until clean.
Dry foam cleaning makes use of dry foam for cleaning, unlike shampooing which is wet. It cleans in the same manner as shampooing, but since the carpet almost doesn’t get wet, it dries faster and therefore achieves faster cleaning time. These two methods make a lot of hard brushing action with the carpet and risk some damage to it. Some foam residue might also be left behind and attract more dirt which will cause more staining to the carpet over time. These are the issues that make shampooing and dry foam cleaning substandard methods.
Bonnet cleaning, also sometimes called dry cleaning, can be done by spraying some bonnet cleaning solution into the carpet, and then an absorbent pad is attached to a rotary floor machine which is driven into the carpet for cleaning. Sometimes the absorbent pad gets sprayed with the solution instead of the carpet. These pads are used until it can no longer collect dirt and replaced for repeating the process until the carpet is fully clean.
Next is the dry powder method. As the name implies, it uses dry powder that contains the cleaning agents, which is also distributed all over the carpet. A rotary brush then goes over the carpet, which forces the dirt and soil to get collected by the cleaning powder. This method dries the fastest, at an astounding rate, after which the residue is also vacuumed until the carpet is fully cleaned.
The problem with this method is that you need to carefully vacuum every trace of cleaning powder that is visible in the carpet. This is because these granules can easily damage and stain your carpet when left over time, not to mention the way it can affect your air quality at home.
A carpet cleaner that employs hot water extraction method is the most effective in restoring the beauty of your carpet. The reason is because it is able to penetrate deep beyond the carpet surface to remove more dirt, stains and soil that other cleaning methods cannot. Sometimes this is also called steam cleaning because of the steam-like streams of water that comes out from the carpet cleaning equipment.
The process involves spraying a steam-like fine mist of cleaning solution mixed with hot water, which is immediately extracted by a specialized vacuum which transfers it to a holding tank that collects the dirty solution from the carpet. This method is very efficient in cleaning as it flushes out completely the deep seethed dirt, soil and other small foreign objects in the carpet.
It is essential to be able to learn these carpet cleaning methods that are commonly used. With so many carpet cleaning equipment available in the market, it is good that you have an understanding how they work and clean your carpet. This will also help you in making a decision whether to clean your carpet yourself or to get a professional carpet cleaner to get the job done effectively.