Which method of carpet cleaning cleans best?
There are 4 main types of carpet cleaning methods:
- Dry foam: The cleaner applies shampoo to your carpet/upholstery, allows it to dry, and then without rinsing sucks the dried shampoo into a vacuum. Can you imagine applying shampoo to your hair, allowing it to dry and then removing the shampoo from your head with a vacuum?
This method leaves dirty residue in your carpet/upholstery, which is one reason dry foam is not too effective.
- Absorbent pad (bonnet buffing): This method is similar to dry foam except that the company sets a large cotton bonnet on your carpet and with a floor polishing buffer machine on top ‘buffs’ the carpet. The rotating motion causes the bonnet to absorb dirt from your carpet. This method is also called bonnet buffing. Bonnet cleaning is like trying to use a large cotton towel to mop or rub the dirt out of carpets. It’s not very effective.
- Dry, absorbent powder: The dry-compound is the driest of all methods. It spreads a moist, absorbent powder through the carpet/upholstery. It is allowed to dry and then sucked into a vacuum. This method leaves dry sponge particles at the base of the carpet/upholstery yarn. And because the carpet/upholstery is not rinsed, this method is not very effective.
- Hot water extraction: This is a fancy way of saying that a hot water cleaning solution under high pressure is forced into your carpets & upholstery and then sucked out again. In a recent Technical Bulletin, Shaw Industries, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer ‘recommends the hot water extraction system, which research indicates provides the best capability for cleaning’. This is the method we recommend for most cleaning.
On which type to choose, Shaw’s Technical Bulletin states: “Cleaning can be done from a truck mounted unit outside the facility with only the hose and wand brought inside, or where a truck mounted unit cannot reach, by a portable, self contained system brought into the facility".
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