I taught my Biker gang how to clean carpet.

[Mikey P]

Rug Doctors are all the rage with them so I gave them this lecture...

• Get a Shark Navigator vacuum or it's equivalent (Dyson or the latest Hoover Dirt cup design) and vacuum all the carpet until no more soil comes up. Pay special attention to entry areas, in front of the TV and where the dog sleeps, work it from at least 3 directions. Dry soil is a hundred times easier to get out than mud.
• Pick up some "20 volume/9%" Hydrogen Peroxide from Sally's beauty Supply (liquid, no cream) in a quart bottle and thread a trigger spray on it. As soon as you are done vacuuming liberally spray all organic (urine, coffee, soda fruit etc) spots/stains with the H202(Undiluted). Do not use this on wool or any other natural fiber rug or carpet or furniture.
• Get a pump up "Hudson" type sprayer and fill it with SOFT water as hot as you can get it. Turn your water heater up if need be. Leave room to add 2 ounces of premium carpet cleaner "Pre spray". Your local Janitorial store or carpet cleaning supply store will sell it to you if you walk in with a your wife beater on. Make sure to park your Trans Am out front so the guy behind the counter can see it removing all doubt that you are not a certified professional CC'r. Prochem, Chemspec, Pro's Choice are all easy to find at supply shops. Or you can buy the Zep Traffic Lane Cleaner from Home Depot.
• With your Hot Hudson mix practice spraying your driveway so you can get a feel for how much liquid it will take to get your carpet fibers wet from top to bottom without getting the backing soaked. Work about 100 to 150 square feet at a time. Anymore and the pre spray will work it's way into the pad and take forever and a day to dry. It will get moldy and reEk for days on end so take it slow and easy.. next take a clean push broom and scrub the carpet in a few directions. This will help break the soil loose and make rinsing easier.
• Now fill up your POS Rug Doctor with hot SOFT (if possible) water and half a cup of white vinegar to every gallon ran through the machine to help rinse out the prespray and to neutralize the carpet. Apply the water/vinegar solution only on the backstroke only. Due to lack of real heat, water pressure and vacuum like the Pro's have (Me) you may to need to pre spray, agitate and rinse real bad areas more than once. DO NOT USE MORE THAN 4 ounces per gallon. More is not better.
• Once you have the area looking good, use the Rug Doctor to dry stroke until you no longer are recovering water. Fiber content and density, amount of pre spray and rinse used will dictate how much time you'll need to dry stroke the carpet. Keep in mind that you are removing soil as well as water so don't skimp here.
• When you are content with that 100 square feet set as many fans on the carpet as possible. Consider renting a Snail /Water Damage fan if you'll be cleaning in the winter months. turning the heat on and closing the windows will only slow down the drying process, fresh airflow is what it's all about. If you have a built in house fan or want to run the AC at full blast that will work too.
• Wood or non stainless steel furniture legs placed back on damp carpet will need a plastic barrier under the legs so rust or wood stain does not ruin your fine flooring.
• You won't be able to clean staircases with that POS unless it comes with a hand tool. Rug Doctors use to come with a real wand and hoses but idiots kept breaking them by slamming them in the trunk so RD came up with this lame all encompassing Box design. Sorry.
• next summer after you sell the POS at your yard sale, don't forget to tip the pro you hired to replace it.

How'd I do?

 

[Lonny]

Bout sums it all up. Forgot to get a couple pine tree air fresheners to hang over the mantle.

 

[Neil King]

Pretty good instructions, actually. Some good humor mixed in too.

 

[truckmount girl]

Love it! Can I post it on my dog forums?

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Steve Lawrence]

Nice post.


"When you are content with that 100 square feet set as many fans on the carpet as possible. Consider renting a Snail /Water Damage fan if you'll be cleaning in the winter months. turning the heat on and closing the windows will only slow down the drying process, fresh airflow is what it's all about. If you have a built in house fan or want to run the AC at full blast that will work too."

Your outdoor air in winter must be a lot warmer and drier than in Michigan. Our furnace heated air is very dry and the added humidity from carpet cleaning is very welcome--no need to ventilate with our frigid outdoor air.

 

[Mikey P]

Love it! Can I post it on my dog forums?

Take care,
Lisa

sure.

 

[KevinL]

Setting the ac on full blast will slow the drying process as it will get to cold. 72-74 with fans should be the best temp for drying. I know you weren't sleeping in structural drying class.

 

[truckmount girl]

They loved the wife beater/Trans Am comment.

Someone wants to know if you'll go to Michigan.

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Mikey P]

Bump

 

[Mikey P]

Bump

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Good stuff Mikey

I was staying at a friend's cabin in a remote section of Nova Scotia some years back and the carpet was pleading for attention. I had to rent a Rug Doctor and make my own concoctions to clean with based on what I could get at the little grocery store and hardware store in that remote village.

It came out surprisingly well.

I've lived with the shame of the whole event for years now...this allowed me to "come clean", lol.

 

[dgardner]

We've always said it's the operator, not the equipment....

 

[dealtimeman]

Setting the ac on full blast will slow the drying process as it will get to cold. 72-74 with fans should be the best temp for drying. I know you weren't sleeping in structural drying class.

I have to disagree with your general statement.

In Texas due to the outside normal relative humidity being so high, the lower you set your a/c the better with only one caveat to consider, and that would be freezing up the coils to a solid block of ice. Other than that scenario, cycling the air over the cold coils, allowing the moisture to collect or condensate on the fins of the coil and run down to be pumped or gravity fed out of the structure, will always be very helpful.

If you just set the as down to 74 and add air movers you will need to be cautious not to cause secondary damage, as the moisture has nowhere to go once in the air. You could possibly create a condition of 100 percent humidity and cause the moisture to condensate on walls, art, paper work and other materials that WILL absorb water and possibly create an issue.

I know to many companies that just add air movers with no understanding or consideration as to where the moisture will go.

Where does the moisture go?

 

[Desk Jockey]

Too hard to say and will depend on how many grains the outside air is that day. I'd run the attic fan as Mike mentioned, exchanging the air will be faster than processing it. Provided its dry air coming in to displace the moisture laden air.

What Kevin was eluding to is that warm air has more capacity to hold moisture than the cold air and so warmer temps will dry faster. Its doubtful it could cause secondary damage just from carpet cleaning unless they closed the house up and did nothing. However to give Lockhart the benefit of doubt they are not professionals and they are using the Super Soaker Rug Dr.

 

[dgardner]

cycling the air over the cold coils, allowing the moisture to collect or condensate on the fins of the coil and run down to be pumped or gravity fed out of the structure, will always be very helpful.

Isn't that how lgr dehus work?

 

[dealtimeman]

Isn't that how lgr dehus work?

that is how all refrigerant dehus work that i know of, there might be some from the time ago of rico chavez that worked differently, but yes that is simple way of explaining how modern dehus work.

 

[Desk Jockey]

there might be some from the time ago of rico chavez

yea I'm old. bite me.

 

[dealtimeman]

Dan if i was in your climate, i would not hassle with the a/c at all, just open your windows and it will dry almost instantly. maybe add an air mover or two.

a few years back, i sold a couple of large drieaz lgrs to a guy who lived out west in the dessert. Any how one day the guy calls me to tell me that i had sold him a couple of broken dehus or malfunctioning dehus. So i told him, that i had tested the dehus prior to sending them out and that they were in perfect working order.

he then tells me that they have been on for 3 days and no water had been pumped out. he had seen many videos and taken a class in wdr, so he knew by day three something should been pumped out but nothing, not even a drop.

so i ask him to take output or exhaust readings on the dehu. he tells me it reads 85 degrees at 3 percent relative humidity. i immediately think to myself, damn i sold him one of the best dehus the world has even seen. i then told him to get away from the dehu, but still in the same area, and give me an ambient reading. he then tells me, it reads 78 degrees at 7 percent relative humidity.

i then explain to him that it will more than likely take about 1 full year of the dehus being on before he can expect a drop of water to be pumped out of the unit as there was no moisture in the air to be removed. i also recommended he drink a lot of water and use lotion on his skin to protect himself.

it is all relevant but some people do not want their windows open and allow dust into their home.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Rug Doctors are all the rage with them so I gave them this lecture...

• Get a Shark Navigator vacuum or it's equivalent (Dyson or the latest Hoover Dirt cup design) and vacuum all the carpet until no more soil comes up. Pay special attention to entry areas, in front of the TV and where the dog sleeps, work it from at least 3 directions. Dry soil is a hundred times easier to get out than mud.
• Pick up some "20 volume/9%" Hydrogen Peroxide from Sally's beauty Supply (liquid, no cream) in a quart bottle and thread a trigger spray on it. As soon as you are done vacuuming liberally spray all organic (urine, coffee, soda fruit etc) spots/stains with the H202(Undiluted). Do not use this on wool or any other natural fiber rug or carpet or furniture.
• Get a pump up "Hudson" type sprayer and fill it with SOFT water as hot as you can get it. Turn your water heater up if need be. Leave room to add 2 ounces of premium carpet cleaner "Pre spray". Your local Janitorial store or carpet cleaning supply store will sell it to you if you walk in with a your wife beater on. Make sure to park your Trans Am out front so the guy behind the counter can see it removing all doubt that you are not a certified professional CC'r. Prochem, Chemspec, Pro's Choice are all easy to find at supply shops. Or you can buy the Zep Traffic Lane Cleaner from Home Depot.
• With your Hot Hudson mix practice spraying your driveway so you can get a feel for how much liquid it will take to get your carpet fibers wet from top to bottom without getting the backing soaked. Work about 100 to 150 square feet at a time. Anymore and the pre spray will work it's way into the pad and take forever and a day to dry. It will get moldy and reEk for days on end so take it slow and easy.. next take a clean push broom and scrub the carpet in a few directions. This will help break the soil loose and make rinsing easier.
• Now fill up your POS Rug Doctor with hot SOFT (if possible) water and half a cup of white vinegar to every gallon ran through the machine to help rinse out the prespray and to neutralize the carpet. Apply the water/vinegar solution only on the backstroke only. Due to lack of real heat, water pressure and vacuum like the Pro's have (Me) you may to need to pre spray, agitate and rinse real bad areas more than once. DO NOT USE MORE THAN 4 ounces per gallon. More is not better.
• Once you have the area looking good, use the Rug Doctor to dry stroke until you no longer are recovering water. Fiber content and density, amount of pre spray and rinse used will dictate how much time you'll need to dry stroke the carpet. Keep in mind that you are removing soil as well as water so don't skimp here.
• When you are content with that 100 square feet set as many fans on the carpet as possible. Consider renting a Snail /Water Damage fan if you'll be cleaning in the winter months. turning the heat on and closing the windows will only slow down the drying process, fresh airflow is what it's all about. If you have a built in house fan or want to run the AC at full blast that will work too.
• Wood or non stainless steel furniture legs placed back on damp carpet will need a plastic barrier under the legs so rust or wood stain does not ruin your fine flooring.
• You won't be able to clean staircases with that POS unless it comes with a hand tool. Rug Doctors use to come with a real wand and hoses but idiots kept breaking them by slamming them in the trunk so RD came up with this lame all encompassing Box design. Sorry.
• next summer after you sell the POS at your yard sale, don't forget to tip the pro you hired to replace it.

How'd I do?

I just cut and pasted into my planner to maybe use at a BNI presentation in the future....

Love it!

Been sure getting a lot of great stuff from here that I have been adding to my notes and planner!

 

[dgardner]

Yes Michael, I have little problem getting good dry times for all but a few weeks out of the year (monsoon season).

 

[Papa John]

Rug Doctors are all the rage with them so I gave them this lecture...

Pick up some "20 volume/9%" Hydrogen Peroxide from Sally's beauty Supply (liquid, no cream) in a quart bottle and thread a trigger spray on it. As soon as you are done vacuuming liberally spray all organic (urine, coffee, soda fruit etc) spots/stains with the H202(Undiluted). Do not use this on wool or any other natural fiber rug or carpet or furniture.

How'd I do?

We use 40 volume/12% on wool rugs all the time.. Robert Mann uses 35% HP on rugs. AND puts the rugs out in the Hot Sun!.. 40 volume n lower for scardy cats (pussies)-- he says same thing about Sodium MetaBisulfite.
Of course Robert Mann did show us a photo of a crispy bundle that was once a rug-- victim of Spontaneous Combustion--