Before you pick a professional carpet cleaning company to clean your carpets, you may what to look at each of their cleaning processes. There are a number of different ways to clean carpets, and each comes with its pros and cons. In this article, we’ll discuss the different carpet cleaning methods.
Water Extraction
The water extraction process uses either cold or hot water to clean the carpet. When hot water is used it’s often referred to as steam cleaning. The process is as follows. First, the carpet is pre-sprayed with the cleaning solution, which is left to dwell for 10-15 minutes. While it dwells it breaks down the bonds between dirt and the carpet fibres.
Hot or cold water is then sprayed into the carpet at high pressure, washing the loosened dirt off of the carpet. A vacuum is then used to suck the water and dirt into a water tank.
This is probably the most common carpet cleaning method, and it does a great job of removing common stains such as coffee. The only problem with it is carpets take a long time to dry after being cleaned with this method. And in turn, this can lead to other problems such as shrinkage, cellulosic browning, mould and bad odours.
Dry Cleaning
Technically there is no method that enables you to dry clean your carpet, but this is as close as it gets. This process involves the use of a powder that is slightly moist because it has been saturated in a cleaning solution. The powder is sprinkled onto the carpet and then spread evenly through it using a broom or Contra Rotating Brush machine. It is left to dwell for around 40 minutes or so, which allows enough time for the powder to absorb the dirt in the carpet. Finally, it is vacuumed out.
This is a great method to use on carpets that are prone to damage or shrinkage if they get wet such as carpets that have a Jute backing.
The downside of this method is that it doesn’t give you a very deep clean.
Low Moisture Cleaning
The low moisture carpet cleaning process involves pre-spraying the carpet with a cleaning solution and allowing it to dwell. A bonnet is then dipped into the cleaning solution and squeezed in a ringer vessel, before being attached to a bonnet cleaning machine. The bonnet cleaning machine is then run over the carpet, whilst absorbing the dirt.
This method uses minimal amounts of water and has very quick drying times. The downside is it won’t give you the deepest clean. However this is our main cleaning process, and we have added some tweaks to our process, which means we can deep clean your carpets using this method. We use an industrial vacuum cleaner, followed by a CRB to remove as much dust and dry soil as possible, reducing the allergens in the carpet that could potentially end up in the atmosphere otherwise. The combination of the CRB and the Heated Bonnet Cleaning system effectively gives you two cleans for the price of one!