How would you tackle this "TUFTED" rug?

[daniel@procarpet]

I have to clean this 8x11 wool rug. It is a tufted rug with no pet stains but stained with everything else. The picture doesn't do justice on this rug. It looks to have hot sauce, drink stains and everything else. I need to use the best products to get it as clean as possible without soaking it. I would love to mix some sp hot, but that will damage the rug for sure. I am going to prespray, aggitate with a green stripe bonnet, rinse with a glided rx, and then post buff.

My question is what should I use as a prespray? PH is not my concern. Getting the rug clean is.

 

[Shorty]

I'm not real sure I uderstand you.

You are going to clean a wool rug, with a green stripe bonnet, but you are not concerned about pH ??

I'm slow and I'm missing something here, please help me.

Ooroo,

 

[daniel@procarpet]

This rug is filthy. Tons of staining from food and drink spills. Regular prepspray isn't going to budge these stains.

I was thinking about trying the hp based product.

Good idea or bad?

http://www.clorox.com/products/faqs.php?prod_id=c2

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Ok I see the Stainfighter II is not recommended for wool.

 

[dgargan]

It's not an expensive rug or that delicate . Put it on a tarp in your driveway and flood the heck out of it then get a good encap and a soft brush for your rotary and scrub it down good and rinse. That's a safe clean. If you need more spotting for tough stains I would get help from some one local that knows more about wool as it seems you don't do a lot of this.

 

[sweendogg]

Daniel...as mentioned before.. pH is not the issue so much as the buffereing is. Heck the in plant detergent we use most of the time is aroun 10 to 11, but its not buffered very much so it rinses easily and doesn't shift the pH of the wool so much to force a bleeding issue. Looks like the rug in question is either a sino or indo tufted aubussson look alike. so bleeding shoudl not be an issue, but you'll have to watch out for the heavy chemical washing this wool goes through for alot of tufted rugs. They will not release stains very well and tend to leaver lighter areas after failed attempts at removing.

If I was cleaning it, I'd a full wash on it, hit it heavy with a good preconditioner and then shampoo, rinse, rinse, rinse, and then extract, extract, extract and dry flat. Alot of times you can full wash tufted and still keep the backing from delaminating.. but it can be an art and requires atleast a second guy when moving the wet rug to keep the backing from breaking or pulling away from the rug.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

David you are right. I have washed tufted rugs for years not knowing they were tufted. I learn a lot of practical stuff on this board.

I am going to use the product I mentioned earlier as a booster. There are too many stains that will not come out with a regular shampoo and rinse. I will post back with the results. http://www.clorox.com/products/overview.php?prod_id=c2

I would like to just top clean the rug with the glided rx. Doing so may be a lot easier and the results will be close to the same. I vacuumed it for thirty minutes. All I need to do now is use a good boosted preconditioner, aggitate, and rinse with the glided rx which I have never done and curious to see how well it works.

Besides I priced the rug as a top clean only. I am getting 175 to clean and protect the rug which is about 75 lower than my norm.

Also I don't see how soaking the rug is going to help get the stains out. It may make it cleaner, but also risks doing more damage.

 

[sweendogg]

That is part of understanding wool, it will release a lot of soiling or stainng without fancy chemistry if you give it some good dwell time and good rinsing. If you want to surface clean avoid the bonnet as you will cause pile distortion as will the rx. Stick with a very soft brush for your rotary, then high flow flush with a wand with the direction of the pile. Then be sure to to groom.

 

[TimP]

I've cleaned a copy of that rug before with my TM. You can use a white pad on it with a cimex with little concern. I usually use something like Judson O2 cleaner for them. And rinse with an acid rinse. See if something like that works then go from there.

When cleaning natural fibers I don't give clients much hope when I'm talking to them and I'm not too interested in getting too fancy with the effort because I'd rather leave some stains than buy a rug. I think peroxide can be safe and some red removers have directions for wool, but that's about as far as I'd go being as I'm not a rug guy.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I decided to hack the rug out. I pretreated with fine fabric boosted with the stain fighter and color booster and rinsed with water. As expected a lot of stains did not come out. I could have treated the stains with stain magic etc, but there were so many that I didn't want to treat so large an area. I also knew a full wash cleaning would do better but the stains would have remained. Normally I clean the backing with a hole glide. I cleaned the fringe and it turned out good. After cleaning a lot of the stains went away, but a few large ones remained. I am assuming they were hot sauce etc.

So I called the customer and told her the rug was decent but not perfect and there would be no charge. That was a few days ago. I delivered the rug today and when I unrolled it every single stain was gone except one little spot. Her jaw dropped (mine too). She said it looks great. The stain figher which is loaded with peroxide got the stains out.

She pulled out her check book and wrote a check for the full amount. I told her what happened to the rug and why it turned out better than I anticipated.

I didn't mind doing the rug free of charge as this was a learning experience. Plus I spent all of 15 minutes hacking it out.

I also told myself from this day forward I will either do a rug right or to the best of my ability or not at all.

 

[Mountain View Carpet Care]

This Link will show you step by step!!

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+to+clean+carpets+like+a+Pro?+Call+Mountain+View+Carpet+Care.

 

[sweendogg]

Ok I want one!!!! Tell us your secret!! :shock:

 

[John Buxton]

Mountainview...that was excellent.

 

[sweendogg]

Mountain view, we are still waiting for the secret!!! :mrgreen:

 

[daniel@procarpet]

This is what I was faced with. I could have post treated the spots but there were a lot. When I unrolled the rug I couldn't believe it. For the most part they were just gone. I wish I would have taken an after video. The rug looked great for a spray and suck hack job.

p]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKhkftFiY0Ip]

 

[Ken Snow]

At $175 "discounted price" they should have thrown the POS in the garbage and bought a new rug for a few hundred more. No one sells that crap anymore.

 

[Mountain View Carpet Care]

Mountainview...that was excellent.

Thanks Buck.