I may need some help with a rug.

[daniel@procarpet]

I picked up an 8x10 nicer machine made wool rug. The rug was in a basement and rain water got on it. I assume it sat down there for a few days. The owner laid it on a trampoline to dry and then called me. When I picked it up the rug was soft and flexible. I cleaned it with a low ph fine fabric shampoo and rinsed very thoroughly. I sprayed it with sanitizer and placed fans to dry it out. I noticed right after extracting the rug the edges starting curling up. The rug was dry so I started rolling it up. Now the rug is stiff as plywood. What gives?

 

[joe harper]

I picked up an 8x10 nicer machine made wool rug. The rug was in a basement and rain water got on it. I assume it sat down there for a few days. The owner laid it on a trampoline to dry and then called me. When I picked it up the rug was soft and flexible. I cleaned it with a low ph fine fabric shampoo and rinsed very thoroughly. I sprayed it with sanitizer and placed fans to dry it out. I noticed right after extracting the rug the edges starting curling up. The rug was dry so I started rolling it up. Now the rug is stiff as plywood. What gives?

The Latex has hardened...

Unless you are talking about the yarn being STIFF.. :?:

 

[rhyde]

picture :?:

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I can't post a pic, but the latex does appear to have hardened. What would cause that?

I will get a pic tomorrrow.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Actually I don't believe there is any latex. The rug appears to be woven to a backing or I can see the pattern on the back of the rug.

 

[sweendogg]

Soap residue remaining in the rug, you impacted all of the dry soil that was still in the rug with your wet process and now that has hardended and created a mess, or it wasn't wool.. dry dusting it again even with a regualr beater bar vacuum with the rug face down over white paper.. keep going to you get no more. then vacuum the front like there is no tomorow.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

First the rug wasn't dry but I did need to roll it to move it. Now that the rug is dry it is perfect. I guess the edges had curled up making the rug difficult to roll up, but they have now laid flat. When I say stiff I mean like plywood. Now it is normal. Anyways I am happy with how it turned out. My main concern was the mildew smell.

 

[amazingcleansc]

First the rug wasn't dry but I did need to roll it to move it. Now that the rug is dry it is perfect. I guess the edges had curled up making the rug difficult to roll up, but they have now laid flat. When I say stiff I mean like plywood. Now it is normal. Anyways I am happy with how it turned out. My main concern was the mildew smell.

Is that the smell of residual soil mixed with wool(dog) smell you are detecting?

 

[daniel@procarpet]

The rug smells clean now. Before it did have a mildew smell hence the reason I was called to clean it. I used a sanitizer (odoban) to freshen it up after cleaning it. There is no soil or shampoo residue left in the rug. I rinse very thoroughly.

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

Sometimes tightly woven rugs (like Sarouks) will curl up after the wash, and are really stiff along the edges. They loosen and flatten when dry. Typically happens with a depressed warp weave, where the thick cable wefts literally move one set of warps BEHIND the others so you almost have a double foundation.

If that doesn't make sense, take your hand, fingers straight, then stick a pencil in front and behind every other finger, and you can see how one moves almost behind another. If the warps are your fingers, and the pencil is the cable weft, then you can see how the woven construction can end up not being all on one plane with warps side by side.

One way to know if a rug has a depressed warp construction is to look at the knots on the back. Every "knot" is wrapped around two warps, so on this rug - which is not depressed construction - you can see specifically with the white knots TWO side by side bumps (nodes).

If this was a fully depressed warp construction, you would only see one white dot in those areas.

This means nothing as far as cleaning the rug - warp depression is irrelevant. But, it does explain why some of these rugs, when they get wet and that cotton foundation gets stiff, that it can feel like wood and curl up like this.

Probably more info than you wanted or needed... but I wanted to at least let you know why that happened to you, and why it fixed itself.

Lisa