Burtz said:
how skilled do you really need to be with a garden hose
d]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUYkEMmPpPwd]
Alex, are you being serious?
The rug in the video is Chinese - it's a beast when wet. The dyes won't bleed on that one (probably the reason why they picked it for the video) - so with the right shampoo and rinse, it's a straight forward wash IF you have the equipment, that wringer, to get that large amount of water out of the rug. That wringer runs about $30k ten years ago to buy new - and todays spinner wringers will run you closer to $50K.
You need to have the space for that large equipment - and the process for drying and grooming the rug - a mechanized rack system will run you around $10K for about a dozen poles. And the space to dry it completely - the air movers, dehus, and warm air to make it happen thoroughly.
Potential problems with a Chinese rug like this one are that it's chemically washed fairly heavily before going to market, and this process yellows the cotton fringes, so the fringes are treated with a strong hydrogen peroxide treatment to make it that "pearly white" color. The chemical wash weakens the wool fibers, and makes them sensitive to color loss due to direct sun light, to high heat, and to any of your standard stain removers - even Stain Magic for Wool will fry the dyes out of these rugs.
The peroxide treatment makes the fringe tassels weak - so scrubbing them, on the worst ones, will tear them off. If you can take one strand and when you tug it, it breaks, you need to be extremely careful. I've seen a few cleaners grab the end of a Chinese rug in their little wash pit set up and pull it by the fringe to move it, and rip the end off. And that's a tough, tough repair.
So... if the cleaner handling this fairly "safe" Chinese rug has little or no rug skills, they can easily ruin the rug with the wrong pH solution, using too much agitation on the field without enough water to buffer the brush, using heat, using a heavy wand - or a rake groomer - that can scar the fibers, or not getting enough of the moisture out from the middle cotton fibers of the rug in the drying process, which can lead to mildew problems.
Pile distortion, color loss, yellowing of the wool and/or fringe, halos around stains from stain removers - these are all common problems I see unskilled cleaners create with a generally safer to clean rug like this.
Toss in a rug that's a bleeder, or has pre-existing conditions that will create a cleaning nightmare (tea wash applications, stenciling, dry rot, old repairs, etc.), or is a rug that may be worth $1,000... or $100,000 - and put that in unskilled hands, and if you do not have workmanship coverage (which many states do not have for rug plants) - then you pay out of pocket for any of those mistakes.
If you think cleaning rugs just requires a hose... I'll wait to see how long it is before you post your horror story of the silk rug that cost you your business.
Just because the cleaning steps are simple looking - it does not mean they are easy... and it does not mean they do not require skilled cleaners behind them.
I don't poo-poo your craft or talent of cleaning floors in homes... please don't poo-poo ours in plant.
Lisa