Pile Reversal or just Wear?

Trip Moses

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Trip Moses
The darker part of the carpet is where the old people do the slipper shuffle. I did not take a before picture. It cleaned up well and they were very happy. I’ve heard about pile reversal but have never seen it. Just wondering if I have finally seen “Bigfoot”? I’ll accept all replies. 😀
88828
 

J Scott W

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More than likely soil and wear.

View the area from opposite sides. As Lee implied, the areas that now look dark will look lighter and the lighter areas will look darker if this is a case of pile reversal. Also see the post on the old pencil and paper trick on another way to check for pile reversal.

The backgammon pattern from your wand strokes is a good example of light and dark appearance due to pile reversal.
 

Acp

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its wear. heres a pile reversal from a regular customer of ours... wall to wall wool, they thought it was dirty traffic lanes. Lucky for me the husband is a scientist so when I googled it and showed him he was fascinated lol

88830
 

Cleanworks

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Wool cut pile carpets will do that. I have a building that when it was built, then installed high end, cut pile wool broad loom in all the suites. Before anyone ever lived in them, they had pooling and water marking all over. (Water marking doesn't involve water). Happens to most staple fibers. They shed like crazy as well.
 
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Acp

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that one in the pic is wool and in some spots u can push the fibers one way or another and it completely changes. When we serviced their home the first time I thought for sure they had a flood or something
 

Bob Savage

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Pile reversal can be identified by running the palm of your hand from the lighter to darker or the darker to lighter appearance, and when you make the transition from one to the other, you can feel the fibers going from laying down to rising up, or vice versa.
 
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I was told a story from Robert Mann when I was in Denver, he said something about there being water lines or electrical running within 3’ of the affected area.... just a theory I think...
 
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They replaced carpet in one location and within a few days a similar pattern developed before any traffic.

They likewise followed that dead end.
 

Trip Moses

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Y’all have really disaflipappointed me on these pile reversal theories. The true test is to play naked trailer park Twister with baby oil. If the plastic stays in place over the reversal demarcation line then you definitely have pile reversal. Thank you. Now go out and make some money today!!
 

J Scott W

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So is pooling and pile reversal the same? If not what is the difference?
The main difference is different terminology. Pile reversal is a broader term. It could include sections of carpet simply being installed installed different directions or any other cause.

Pooling is the form of pile reversal that looks like pools of water such as in the photo above. You can also find a few dozen photos of pooling from the Portland airport taken by every carpet instructor that spent a few minutes there.
 
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sweendogg

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The darker part of the carpet is where the old people do the slipper shuffle. I did not take a before picture. It cleaned up well and they were very happy. I’ve heard about pile reversal but have never seen it. Just wondering if I have finally seen “Bigfoot”? I’ll accept all replies. 😀
View attachment 88828

If it didn't come out completely...

While pooling and shading is predominantly present in wool fibers or even occaisional nylon cutpiles, (we have also seen this already in a few smartstrand dense cutpiles) this is more telltail of an older Polyester Carpet.. specifically the older versions of the PET Polyester. We have seen this countless times.. its not soil or wear but rather develops in higher traffic areas where the constant traffic and pad breakdown form this permanent ridging. Its not correctable.
 

Ron K

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To be honest first picture looks like the pile has laid down (crushed) because of
foot traffic/wear. You see the glide marks are not uniform across the entire stroke the pile did not bounce or rebound after cleaning. It is sometimes why you'll get chatter even with a glide.
I would bet the fiber in the first photo is not Nylon or Wool.
Wool can have it's pile manipulated.
Another factor is that once this condition has occurred you're wearing the side of the fiber not the face. Therefore it "looks" dirty when in fact it, the area, is just reflecting light differently.
Pile reversal as far as I know is not a wear issue but an install problem that is apparent even before any foot traffic. It's the same reason you're supposed to side match wallpaper too.
 

icleancarpetz

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I’ve cleaned a couple of these within the last two months. To me, it’s junk carpet that went bad or bad carpet that was waiting to become junk. What’s the difference? End result is bad gone junk junk gone bad.

It’s disappointing to see this. It’s clean but appearance is so so.
 
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SamIam

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The darker part of the carpet is where the old people do the slipper shuffle. I did not take a before picture. It cleaned up well and they were very happy. I’ve heard about pile reversal but have never seen it. Just wondering if I have finally seen “Bigfoot”? I’ll accept all replies. 😀
View attachment 88828
It usually happens on polys on traffic areas where at one point itnkaya one way the. It flips.

Create shadowing big time
 

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