Is a rotary to aggressive for wool?

[jcooper]

It's a giant cut pile area rug, like 15'x20'. No fringe, no bleeding, just fluffy dense wool. Never gets flipped and if you did flip it now the worst areas would be even more noticeable.

Hoping a rotary will help with very noticeable traffic patters. Just wondering if it's too aggressive...

 

[Mikey P]

Depends on the brush..

Our plant guy scrubs most everything with his 175

 

[The Great Oz]

Rotary what?
I don't think any of the rotary extractors would harm it beyond what's been done by traffic in the traffic areas. Use the right chemistry, turn your heat and pressure down from full nuke to day spa.

Brushes do a certain amount of damage, even ones that are soft and nicely broken in. The key is to use enough shampoo to lubricate the nap, and that's only if the rug has a really good twist to the yarn. You then have to get the shampoo out, which is a pain if you're not set up for it.

 

[Mikey P]

I hope he meant a 175..

 

[jcooper]

Yea, I screwed up. Should have been more specific.

I'd like to use my 360i(rotary extractor) on it. It's a pretty thick pile, not like an oriental rug, more like a room of carpet.

 

[Desk Jockey]

It can be too much on dense wool. You set those swirls to where it's almost impossible to remove them.

Last year we had some really nice, really old wool rugs from a huge mansion. They were heavily soiled, the didn't look as if they had been cleaned in decades. I hit them with the XL when the rug guys we out working a mold job. I don't believe they ever got all the swirls out

I was bragging what a great job I did and Dan ripped me one for "ruining" the rugs. Fortunately the client loved the restored texture but it could have gone the other way.

We would Zipper them before we would use an RE and only use an RE with the client informed that restorative cleaning May leave some minor swirls.