Do-it-Yourself Carpet Cleaning

Feb 3, 2012

Can I clean my own carpets?
Can I save money by doing it myself?
How good a job can I expect to do?

The answers are yes, a little, and acceptable.


But it all depends.... Just like with carpentry, plumbing and electrical work, you can do this yourself. The quality of the job will depend on how much effort you put in, what kind of equipment you use, and whether you know any tricks of the trade. Like carpentry, carpet cleaning is not easy or quick. A reputable carpet cleaning company will to spend 30 to 90 minutes per room on your wall-to-wall carpeting, depending on size and soiling. Are you prepared to do the same?

Most purchased or rented equipment available to consumers is either of the extractor, or steamer/extractor type. In both cases, soapy water will be injected into your rug and sucked out. Billions of carpets have been cleaned this way. It works, but you end up with very wet carpets. If you make too many passes with the machine, you will soak the carpet padding, and the floor underneath.

Advice for do-it-yourselfers:

• If you are doing a whole house, you need a whole day to do it right.
• Rent the best equipment you can find at a "rental center". The national brand equipment available in your supermarket leaves much to be desired. The same is true for carpet cleaning machines available to consumers at deparment stores.
• Carpet cleaning solution supplied with the rental equipment is not necessarily green. Look on the internet for "green" carpet cleaning reagents.
• DO use the anti-foamer found with the supermarket equipment, or the machine will overflow onto your floor.
• Always vacuum before doing the wet wash.
• Spot treat stubborn spots by hand with a small scrub brush before doing the main cleaning.
• Never replace wooden or metal furniture feet back on the wet carpet without putting foil or plastic between the feet and the carpet. Failure to do this will leave permanent rust or furniture dye marks in your carpet.
• Don't try random cleaners on your carpet, and especially not bleach. You will get permanent bleach marks for your troubles.
• The best way to speed carpet drying is to turn up the heat in your house to dehumidify. Also turn on fans. If it's hot outside, turn on the air conditioner to dehumidify.
• If you want to get dark edges (if you have them) clean, you cannot do it with a machine. You need a long thin hand brush. (The green colored angular grout brush at Home Depot is perfect.) Make a solution of your green cleaner at 2x strength, get on your hands and knees, and scrub around the edges of all your walls, closets and doors.

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Can Oranges Clean Carpets?

January 26, 2012

Yes they can! You may have seen one of the many "citrus" cleaners at a local store being sold for everything from paint removal, to cleaning toilets, and yes, cleaning carpets.

Reputably made citrus cleaners actually do work. The active ingredient is d-limonene which comes from the peel of any citrus fruit. This chemical smells like oranges, and the usual commercial source of the chemical is the leftover orange peels from the orange juice industry (ie. orange oil).

D-limonene belongs to a class of compounds called terpenes, and it is a powerful solvent for dirt and especially grease.

Limonene is considered by some to be a good dietary anti-cancer tool (Wikipedia), and it is completely biodegradable.

Green Homes Carpet Cleaning's favorite cleaner contains d-limonene among other cleaners. The orange smell is faint, however, and often our customers don't smell the cleaner at all, let-alone the orange smell.

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On the Road with Green Homes Carpet Cleaning

January 5, 2012

We get some unique stories from the road now and then, and they are worth sharing. We found this once when we were cleaning a handmade Persian rug, and again recently on a wall-to-wall carpet.

With the Persian rug, somebody had tried to clean it with baking soda, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But to clean a 9x11 rug with ten pounds of baking soda, that's not recommended. Needless to say, we had to get all that powder out.

Recently with a wall-to-wall carpet, we saw the same thing, but this time there was more like 15 pounds of powder in one bedroom rug.

We had to get all the powder out, or the rug cleaning job would not be a success. If we just got the visible powder off the top, it would look ok that day, but not a few days later.

There was nothing special about what we did. We vacuumed the rugs slowly, over and over again for about one hour each. The powder kept coming and coming like there was an infinite supply.

Here's the trick. We knew when to stop vacuuming when the rate at which the powder filled the vacuum cleaner slowed drastically. The powder never stopped coming, but it did slow down suddenly and drastically. We monitored the rate at which our vacuum cleaner filled, and when it slowed down, we knew we had just about reached the end of the powder. That was at about the one hour mark.

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Oriental Rug Cleaning

December 29, 2011

There are two acceptable ways to do Oriental rug cleaning or Persian rug cleaning. One way is to have them picked up and brought to a factory, where they will do a full immersion rug cleaning. This is the best method for these rugs, but it is also very expensive. A small 5x8 rug can cost $150 to clean in this way.

The second way to get a good Oriental rug shampoo is to have an expert clean it in your home right where it lies. If your service company knows how to shampoo a Persian rug, the results are almost as good. In your home, however, the cost may only be about $40 for the same 5x8 rug.

In your home, Green Homes Carpet Cleaning will vacuum all sides of the rug, pad, and floor. We also do a "dusting out" which simulates hanging the rug and beating it, although we have found that dusting out works even better. Then we shampoo with special rug soaps made for wool and/or delicate dies as appropriate. Our low-moisture rug shampoo uses NO STEAM, and only trace amounts of water. The result is a beautiful fresh rug with brightened colors that can be used later the same day.

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Carpet Cleaning Tip #1

December 14, 2011

Aside from vacuuming your carpets regularly (especially the corners and edges), what else can you do to keep the carpet cleaning man away from your home?

That would be getting out the unsightly spills and spots that eventually cause you to pick up the phone and drop another $200 on professional carpet cleaning.

This requires a combination of two things, speed and technique. By speed, we mean get the spill up as soon as it happens, or as soon as possible thereafter. By technique we mean get the spill up. Emphasis here is on the word "up". That's a vertical direction.

So often we find homeowners who have spread a spill around horizontally instead of moving it in the skyward direction, towards the zenith. To do that, you need a wet-dry vac (available at almost any big box or local hardware store), or something very absorbent, like a terry cloth, to lift the spill up and out. Blotting lifts, and scrubbing spreads. If you act soon, and lift the stain up and out, you will get out many more stains than you would otherwise, and keep more of your household budget in the bank.

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What does Green Mean?

December 6, 2011

Here's what green is not: Global warming, plummeting fish numbers, changing weather patterns, melting glaciers, dying coral reefs exctinction of polar bears, skyrocketing cancer rates, asthma, kidney failure, mood disorders, fumes, irritation, illness, skyrocketing infertility rates.

What we mean by green is that a cleaning product should not be toxic, cause cancer, damage your organs, create irritating fumes, have a noxious smell, have any sort of negative health effect after prolonged exposure in any concentration, or damage the environment inside of your house or out. It sounds like a no-brainer, but traditional carpet cleaning cannot meet this standard. Not by a long shot.

To achieve "greenness", we use all-natural or bio-based cleaning agents along with a low-moisture cleaning technique. We will show you the labels and safety data sheets for anything we are using when we come to your house or business. We have alternative cleaners for you to choose from if you don't like our regular recommended green favorite.

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Similar Name, Different Company!

December 1, 2011

To make a long story short, there is a company called "Green Homes Carpet Cleaning and Restoration" based in California. We are not that company, and we have the federal trademark for "Green Homes Carpet Cleaning". We are in Massachusetts.

Their links, recommendations and reviews are getting mixed up with ours. If you are posting any information about them, please do not link us to it!! Check the spelling of your link URL!

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Should carpets be cleaned in Winter?

November 25, 2011

Well... don't clean them if you don't want to, but from the carpet cleaners perspective, there is no reason not to. Winter is a great time to clean carpets! The carpet cleaning business is slow during winter in the North, so you'll have your choice of appointment days. Also carpets dry MUCH faster in the dessicated indoor winter air. The only caveat is that folks shouldn't walk into the house with muddy, slushy boots and wear them right onto the carpets. To be honest, in the vast majority of houses that Green Homes Carpet Cleaning visits, shoes come off at the door, so its not an issue.

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Are you a germ-a-phobic?

November 23, 2011

There are times to fear germs and times not to. Fear them when they can get into your body, and then, only fear the harmful ones. Your hands, your food preparation areas, your restrooms and your door knobs and telephones are places not to have germs... especially in flu season.

Foremost, keep them clean with good old soap and water. There is no need to buy special products "guaranteed to kill 99% of germs" etc., unless you are a surgeon. Often those are toxins that you needn't expose yourself to. If you really feel that you need to kill those baddies, that simply washing them away isn't enough, then use 50/50 diluted white vinegar.

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Does green carpet cleaning work as well as conventional carpet cleaning?

November 21, 2011

It works better, because you get the same clean without harmful chemicals. But this answer comes with a BIG exception. It depends on who performs your green cleaning and whether they have a good strategy. A quick one-pass job will not produce a good result. Every dark spot needs pretreatment with a green spot cleaner plus some manual effort. The technician needs to keep at it until whole the room is clean. All of the different professional cleaning methods work. To be successful, the person performing the job has to have some experience, have a good toolkit, and be motivated to work to a high standard.