Let's Talk Drying Rugs

[T Monahan]

Admittedly, engineering principles are definitely involved in the construction of equipment for the drying of rugs following the wash process.

An efficient drying system is an important element for in-plant rug cleaning to insure good flow and quick turn-around for our clients.

Leaving the textile with the proper feel, life and appearance is an important consideration for determining the system to have in your facility.

Air at any temperature will absorb only a limited amount of moisture; and if the air, on becoming saturated, is not removed from the drying room it fails to produce further drying service. An increase of heat and agitation is not an answer in itself if the air confined in a closed drying-room space will fail to accomplish the intended purpose.

A study was done by engineers and members of the industry . They established that a common 9’ X 12’ pile rug, after being washed, and thereafter being squeezed-rolled to remove loose water, still averaged containing 3 gallons of water. That is approximately holding twenty-six pounds of water that needs to be vaporized out. Obviously, additionally rugs placed in the drying space multiplies the number of gallons of water that must be vaporized. Therefore, when air in the drying room contains its greatest percentage of moisture, it must be removed, and replaced with fresh make up air until the drying is complete.

Perhaps the audience reading this post may want to post questions for all to consider.

No doubt pictures and description will be posted to show how many different ways exist to accomplish the end result. Granted, much depends on the size of the operation and facility, volume of rugs processed in a given wash cycle, and financial budget allocated for this important aspect of rug care.


Helping You To Get The Most Out Of Rugs ®

Tom

 

[Mikey P]

Helping you get the most out of rugs...
Isn't that Dusty's tag line?

 

[T Monahan]

Helping you get the most out of rugs...
Isn't that Dusty's tag line?

NO sir!

We have a legally registered trademark in both the United States and Canada for: : "Helping You To Get The Most Out Of Rugs"

His unregistered tag line of old has been 'get more out of rugs'. If he stays with that, we have no objection. We would not use such a tag line. We strive not just to achieve 'more', but rather, 'helping you to get the most out of rugs.'

 

[Mikey P]

http://www.rugbadger.com/rugbadgers.html


Looks like may have overlooked your trademark.

 

[T Monahan]

Bucky Badger probably doesn't like it either.

Bucky is the University of Wisconsin's Mascot - A Big Ten University in the USA. I am pretty sure they are interested in their claim to the image.

http://licensing.wisc.edu/policies.html

 

[The Great Oz]

LETS TALK DRYING

That's no fun?

There are some climates where drying rugs doesn't take much work until volumes of rugs are being cleaned. East of LA there are hanging dry rooms that have one wall covered only in chicken wire and no additional heat supply.

Some rugs will be fine slow drying on the floor, using airmovers will reduce the dry time. Drying gets faster putting rugs on pallets or hanging them to allow airflow to front and back. Adding heat becomes important with a larger volume of rugs.

A couple of things have been considered basics for dry rooms:

- The shortest dry time is best to help reduce dye bleed and browning. High heat (above 150F) can create a harsh feel and can begin the carmelization process of sugars, making removal of browning more difficult. Heat above 100F is needed to complete the sanitizing of sewage impacted rugs.

- Airflow across front and back of the rug creates a much shorter dry time. Some rugs dried flat on a hard surface may incur some additional risk from slower drying.

- In tropical areas dehumidifcation may be more important than heat, in warm but less humid climates additional heat may not be needed for normal drying.

- Air in an engineered dry room will "roll" through the room. Hot air at the top of the room is pushed slightly down and across the upper portion of the rugs and will them circulate back through the lower portion of the rugs. Optimium spacing between hanging rugs is 4 to 6 inches. Less doesn't allow enough evaporation, more spacing slows air velocity which may require more air movers.

- Venting moisture-laden air is critical.

Controlled evaporation through heat build-up and then periodic humidistatically-controlled venting of moisture laden air is a basic that may be overturned.

When I told the techs at Cambridge Engineering that rug dry rooms had been modeled after lumber kilns, it struck them that lumber needs to be dried with a controlled evaporation rate so it doesn't crack. Rugs don't need to be dried at a controlled rate, just in a temperature range that won't cause other issues. Cambridge has installed a continuous-vent heat system in the dry room at Woodards in St. Louis. It has cut their dry times and energy use to a fraction of the old humidistat- controlled system.

 

[Desk Jockey]

That continuous burping of moisture laden air was also burping out all the heat that had taken time and $ to build up. I can see where high evaporation and continuous exhaust would work much better.

 

[T Monahan]

Recently a poster stated, among other things, that their rug drying was done flat on the floor due to weather conditions found in San Diego California. They made the claim that they wash “several hundred rugs a week.”

Since Wednesday, I have been in San Diego attending a rug identification seminar. The weather has been beautiful and conducive to drying rugs rapidly.
Since I was with 25 rug washers, along with Val Arbab leading the hands-on seminar who has been to that facility many times, I poised the hypothetical question of flat drying ‘several hundred rugs a week’.

Comments and conclusions came from older established companies that came from Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Toronto, Las Angeles, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Boston, Ithaca, St. Louis, and Knoxville. Added together, they had several hundred years of experience in rug care processing. All agreed that sometimes the hype from some blurs the reality.

 

[T Monahan]

Many of these rooms are still being used today. Now there is an effort to improve the economy of drying in these chambers.

 

[T Monahan]

Thought this was interesting too:

And here is the recommended layout:

Many big Moore in-plant facilities have this design.

 

[Total Cleaning]

That's no fun?

There are some climates where drying rugs doesn't take much work until volumes of rugs are being cleaned. East of LA there are hanging dry rooms that have one wall covered only in chicken wire and no additional heat supply.

Some rugs will be fine slow drying on the floor, using airmovers will reduce the dry time. Drying gets faster putting rugs on pallets or hanging them to allow airflow to front and back. Adding heat becomes important with a larger volume of rugs.

A couple of things have been considered basics for dry rooms:

- The shortest dry time is best to help reduce dye bleed and browning. High heat (above 150F) can create a harsh feel and can begin the carmelization process of sugars, making removal of browning more difficult. Heat above 100F is needed to complete the sanitizing of sewage impacted rugs.

- Airflow across front and back of the rug creates a much shorter dry time. Some rugs dried flat on a hard surface may incur some additional risk from slower drying.

- In tropical areas dehumidifcation may be more important than heat, in warm but less humid climates additional heat may not be needed for normal drying.

- Air in an engineered dry room will "roll" through the room. Hot air at the top of the room is pushed slightly down and across the upper portion of the rugs and will them circulate back through the lower portion of the rugs. Optimium spacing between hanging rugs is 4 to 6 inches. Less doesn't allow enough evaporation, more spacing slows air velocity which may require more air movers.

- Venting moisture-laden air is critical.

Controlled evaporation through heat build-up and then periodic humidistatically-controlled venting of moisture laden air is a basic that may be overturned.

When I told the techs at Cambridge Engineering that rug dry rooms had been modeled after lumber kilns, it struck them that lumber needs to be dried with a controlled evaporation rate so it doesn't crack. Rugs don't need to be dried at a controlled rate, just in a temperature range that won't cause other issues. Cambridge has installed a continuous-vent heat system in the dry room at Woodards in St. Louis. It has cut their dry times and energy use to a fraction of the old humidistat- controlled system.

good info, i know of a large rug cleaning outfit with a huge dry room and that keep in pegged at 120f

 

[Chris A]

"You will be leaving this equipment to your grandchildren" LOL! That's awesome

 

[Ken Snow]

"You will be leaving this equipment to your grandchildren" LOL! That's awesome

You're right Chris, we are already 3 generations with ours and we're all in our 50's now. I can see the equipment lasting at least another 50-100 years.

 

[T Monahan]

Robert Moore installed and maintained conveyor style dry room with chain driven moving poles on rails for decades! (He was Ron's cousin)

 

[T Monahan]

Custom buildings for inside conveyor systems...

The great outdoors for others...

 

[T Monahan]

 

[Chris A]

You're right Chris, we are already 3 generations with ours and we're all in our 50's now. I can see the equipment lasting at least another 50-100 years.

I can't imagine ever having the need for much production type equipment, but I loved seeing your place the couple of times I have and seeing all that old school iron still kicking ass every day.

 

[The Great Oz]

Just ordered a new dry room furnace. $30,000 for the size we needed, but the gas savings should pay it off fairly quickly. We're going from a 3.5 million BTU unit to 1.2, the room will be limited at 135F instead of 120F, and dry times should be cut in half. Faster drying at higher temps should save us a lot of time in post-cleaning grooming as well.

 

[T Monahan]

Just ordered a new dry room furnace. $30,000 for the size we needed, but the gas savings should pay it off fairly quickly. We're going from a 3.5 million BTU unit to 1.2, the room will be limited at 135F instead of 120F, and dry times should be cut in half. Faster drying at higher temps should save us a lot of time in post-cleaning grooming as well.

Now that is fantastic news Bryan. I know that many of the old in-plant Moore style operations need to consider an upgrade in heating and venting their dry rooms. Since we bought the company in August, we have had calls for parts for old furnaces that were sold under the Moore Company decades ago. Companies around the U.S. are given serious consideration to upgrading their facilities. Some already have. Would you care to share more of what you did?

(Note: Centrum Force does not make of sell HVAV systems, nor are we a distributor for any company that does)

 

[The Great Oz]

We're going to be able to use the existing duct work with minor modifications. The old floor mounted unit will go away and we'll hang the new unit in that space so we can use the floor space for other equipment. The return air duct and the large humidity venting fan will be removed. Full installation will probably take a week and should only cost a few thousand dollars.



One of the things I was told by burner manufacturers is that all direct-fired burners (no heat exchanger) share the same efficiency rating, so we should just buy a new version of the existing unit and expect exactly the same gas usage. Given that advice, we did everything we could to keep ours working, installing new controls and sensors, and building our own flame rods, igniters and burner rings. Now we know that statement is only true if you're comparing units that have blowers downstream of the burner, because the output temperature of all of these units has to be limited to avoid damage to the blower.

Anyone calling about no longer available igniters, flame rods, detectors or burner rings probably has a furnace twenty years past the designed lifespan. If they're emotionally attached to it have them give me a call. There are those newer bits of ours that someone may have a use for.

 

[T Monahan]

Here is what Woodard's in St. Louis says on their website:

The safest way to eliminate color run potential and shrinkage is to dry the rug quickly!
At Woodard, we have a state-of-the-art humidity-controlled drying room that quickly heats up to 135° F. We recently updated our old furnace with a new direct fire heating unit with 1.4 million BTU's of heating capacity. That's enough heat to dry a room of 150+ rugs in just a few hours. Our room features large fans near the ceiling and thousands of air holes in the floor, circulating the air, drying rugs rapidly, usually within a couple of hours. This quick drying process minimizes potential damage to your rug from color runs or warping.

See: http://www.woodard247.com/residential-cleaning/humidity-controlled-drying-room.html

 

[T Monahan]

In years gone by Moore offered various items for rug drying rooms. The following picture shows some of the ads for things sold in the past:

Centrum Force and its MOR division does not offer gas fired dryers or boilers. On the other hand, drying room poles, cables, pulleys, motors - yes!

 

[The Great Oz]

One of my first jobs at D. A. Burns was helping break up and remove the giant Bryan boilers. Went to three smaller boilers, then two large, now one large. Only took twenty-five years to realize we weren't cleaning walk-off mats anymore.

 

[T Monahan]

It's fascinating what some guys have come up with to make effective dry rooms for their rug hanging systems. Robert Pettyjohn's rug washing facility displays a great use of space and time. Lots of companies use free standing drying towers like we make, or others as seen here. Yet, instead of dehumidifying the whole shop, Mr. Pettyjohn's water damage drying experience led him to make containment curtains as featured in these pictures. He dries in hours with pumping heat in. High heat makes for a healthy rug too!

Our next Centrum Force Rug Summit will be near Raleigh, NC. Those attending will be able to see his shop with all its cool features.

Here is the same concept from Zerorez in Atlanta:

 

[Nathan544]

Good topic. Tom & I both deal with drying in one of the most challenging states - Michigan. Super hot and humid one day, cold and dry a week later... I have a DriEaz Air-X-Changer, the most underrated piece of drying equipment that company ever made. Trades the inside air for outside, running it through a heat exchanger to keep some of that heat (or A/C) contained. I'd heard these were made with rug plants in mind, and I know they marketed them that way for a while, but they never caught on. We've documented 60 gallons h2o removal/24hours water damage jobs... If I have a deadline, I crank my shop's heat in back to 90 and fire up the AXC, but it's expensive (compared to dehus, for instance). With rug washing though, it's more than justifiable.
Re: fans/blowers, we've found that several small Air Kings from Interlink to circulate the air in &around the rugs are really all you need. Like Robert Pettyjohn, as former restorers, we certainly have plenty of drying equipment handy.
I've really been enjoying reading all of these rug posts. Great pictures of some of the old school rug plants, too. There's lots of cool inovations in the rug biz these days, but I love how that even though no two plants are doing things exactly the same way, we all share the fundamentals of rug cleaning science.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

[T Monahan]

I love my Dri Eaz Air Exchanger. It is a fact that both Nathan Koets and Paul Lucas suggested that I find one and use it. It works best in winter. It removes lots of water quick. When I wanted to acquire one, I put the word out. I found one back in 2006/7 from a cleaner out east. When he found out what I wanted it for, he announced he was a rug washer too. We have been friends ever since. In fact, he subsequently bought a wash tub and centrifuge from me. He has been a speaker from time to time at our Rug Summits. Here are some pictures of the air exchanger device tucked out of general sight at our shop. It is located where we hang rugs to dry.

The combination of our Centri-Maxx horizonatal centrifuge and this air exchanger (it only pulls 7 amps), certainly helps to dry rugs quick in the winter here in Michigan.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We had one, used it on a limited basis. As you mentioned it works best in the winter, our gppp in the summers and fall didn't make it as ideal to use. We also sold it to a rug washer in Canada.

 

[T Monahan]

 

[Mikey P]

what is the story there?


great photo Tom.

 

[Ron K]

what is the story there?


great photo Tom.

Isn't that San Diego in the background ? lol!

It's really the old fashioned way........ ..pre-revolutionary.