Industrial Supplies Michigan – Carpet Spotters
Amerisource Industrial Supply

USING A CARPET SPOTTER TO IMPROVE CARPET CLEANING 

The following is an overview of training that explains the ways that you can use a carpet spotter to improve your overall carpet cleaning success. Carpet cleaning is harder than it looks because we have all experienced two of the most common problems and wonder what is going on.  It is easier than you think because the reason for the problems is straightforward. 

The three problems we encounter time after time are:

1. You had a spot and thought you cleaned it up yesterday.  Today, that same spot is now two or three times larger and even more noticeable.
2. You cleaned your carpet with an extractor last night and it looked pretty good.  This morning there are spots here, there, and everywhere.
3. I cleaned the carpet last night and it does not look as good as I think it should

 If you have experienced either of these problems, you know how frustrating they can be.  But, more importantly, we can deal with them to minimize your frustration.

 The Spot That Grows

There are a number of different carpet spotters – we use different cleaning chemicals to clean different types of soil.  For instance, there are spotters that are most effective against beverages (usually referred to as Tannin Spotters) and there are spotters more effective against food-based soil (usually referred to as Enzyme Spotters).  Spotting kits are available that include all the necessary chemicals to remove any type of spot with use instructions. In addition, there are extracting compounds, pre-sprays, and rinses. 

For our purposes here, we are presuming that you are using the right spotting product – we just want you to understand why the spot returns bigger than ever.

Imagine spilling some coffee.  It is now seeping into the carpet until it hits the impervious carpet backing or the hard floor that the carpet was laid on.   The carpet fibers are soaked wet and there is a pool of coffee at the bottom of the spot. You do the right thing.  You blot the spot and absorb as much of the coffee as possible.  Now you some of your carpet spotter designed for coffee spills and the spot looks ok.  Maybe, you even use a carpet spotter and quickly rinsed the spot.

If you are typical, when you come back the next day, the spot is still there and it is bigger than when you started.  This happens because the coffee lying under the spill on top of the carpet has spread out when it hit the carpet backing.  Maybe it is two-inch spot on top but it is more likely a five-inch pool underneath.

As the carpet fibers dry from the top down, the coffee wicks up the carpet fibers and they cover the entire five-inch pool – not just the two-inch spill.  Doing a quick rinse with a carpet spotter usually aggravates the problem by turning the five-inch pool into an eight-inch pool.

The solution is straightforward and it involves the carpet spotter.  The entire pool of coffee lying under the carpet needs to be extracted.  To do this, all you need to do is keep saturating the spot and sucking it up until the rinse water is coming back clear.  Once the water is coming back clear, the pool of coffee is gone and when the carpet dries, there is nothing to wick back up to make the spot return.

Extracted Last Night and Spotty This Morning

This problem is closely related to the growing spot problem – just on a larger scale.  When you extract a carpet, you get it wet.  It all goes back to those pools of coffee and such that are lying under the carpet.   This time, they are dry and you are going to rewet them with the extractor.  The same thing that happened when you did the quick pass with the carpet spotter will happen when you extract the carpet. 

The spots on the carpet tell us that there is something in or under the carpet.  When we wet it without pulling all of it out of the carpet, the carpet will dry and the dirty water will wick to the surface making another spot.  There are a few ways to handle this – the right way and the cosmetic way.

The right way is to pre-treat the spots and attempt to completely remove any of the spill that has pooled and dried under the carpet.  This can be done with your carpet spotter or with your extraction machine wand.  The cosmetic way is to come back after you extract and run a bonnet over the areas that have spotted.  This will remove the surface dirt and make it appear that the carpet is clean.

Of course, there is another problem that occurs.  Often, spots will show up where there was no indication of a spill in the first place.  This happens because the original spill or spot was surface cleaned but not thoroughly cleaned.  If a spill is completely dry and we successfully clean the carpet surface with a little chemical, we are setting ourselves up for a bigger problem when we do a full extraction.  That spot will come back bigger than ever.  This happens all the time.  At this point, there are two choices – remove the source of the spot with the carpet spotter or bonnet it to clean the surface knowing it will eventually come back again.

Cleaned The Carpet But It Doesn’t Look As Good As It Should

Sometimes dirty carpet it is not what it seems.  Maybe it is:

1. Dirty and needs to be cleaned
2. Full of detergent and needs to be rinsed out
3. Alkaline as a result of too much cleaning and needs to be neutralized
4. Worn out and in need of replacement

Using a carpet spotter, a few cleaning products, and 10 minutes can tell us a lot.  To determine what you are really facing and needs to be done – just put some warm water in the carpet spotter and do some testing.  Then you will know what you need to be doing.

The first test I run is to use the carpet spotter and no chemicals at all.  If you can rinse an area repeatedly and generate soapsuds, your carpet probably has detergent in it – this is residue left from prior cleanings.  Detergent in the carpet increases the speed of resoiling so the carpet gets dirty more quickly.  It this is the case, you do not need to add more detergent to the carpet – you can extract with hot water or use a rinse agent – in either case, the idea is to get the detergent out of the carpet.

The second test I run is to use one of my general purpose spotters and work some into the carpet – then I rinse the carpet with the warm water in the carpet spotter.  This tells me if the carpet is in fact dirty and if cleaning it will produce any results.  If the first test came up empty and the second test generates results, we know the carpet needs to be cleaned.

The third test I run is to use a carpet rinse or neutralizer to determine if the carpet has a condition know as “browning.”  If neither of the other tests generated the result I was looking for, it is possible that the carpet has become alkaline from prior cleanings and has lost its luster.  Using a rinse agent which is acidic in nature will neutralize the alkalinity and restore the carpet.  To perform this test, spray a diluted mixture of carpet rinse onto the carpet, work it in, and remove it with the warm water in the carpet spotter.  If the carpet brightens noticeably, the carpet needs to be extracted using a neutralizer.

Finally, it none of the tests have generated any results – it is probably time to replace the carpet.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Comments are closed.