Whats The Best Method To Clean Your Carpets

There are a number of ways to clean your carpet from rentals at Walmart and home depot, steam cleaning, hot carbonated extraction, to dry solvent cleaning. Each of these types of cleanings will get your carpets cleaner, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each. Which cleaning method provides the most healthier home or business? What method provides the best cleaning? Which cleaning process dries the fastest? Ill explore these questions, and try not to be bios since one of these methods I use personally.

Carpet Rentals

Rug Doctor

Carpet rental machines are a fast and inexpensive way to clean your carpet. Walmart offers rentals of RugDoctor machines for $29 per day with solution purchases separate. The solution for the RugDoctor sells for $7.49 – $16.99. The cost is great for consumers with the price being around $40-$60 to clean your house or business. The down side to this is you’ll have to do it your self and there may be some situations with your carpet that you might not know how to clean (urine, gum, red spots, rips, etc). Also, if you are cleaning 1-2 rooms it might be the same price to hire a professional to do the cleaning vs doing it your self, but if you’re cleaning 3 or more rooms the price couldn’t beat the RugDoctor on the price.

Steam Cleaning

Wand

Steam Cleaning is the most common method of cleaning carpet in the carpet cleaning world. There are a few familiar names that use the steam cleaning method, such as Zerorez, Stanley Steemer, and COIT. This process is simple, they use hot water at temperatures of 245° F,  350 – 500psi (pressure at which the water comes out), and solution normally with a high pH which helps break down spots and traffic areas. The main reason steam cleaning is the most common way of cleaning is because its the easiest to set up, cleaning products can be purchased at local cleaning supply stores, and it does a pretty good job at cleaning carpets. Also, steam cleaners are fast and effective because they have little setup time. This is great for the consumer. The downside to steam cleaning is the dry times which can be between 6 and 24 hours. Also, the solution they use may cause dirt to attract to it if its not rinsed out properly. Thus, your carpets might not stay clean as long as it should. Lastly, its common for spots to reappear because of the high pressure at which the water comes out. Instead of extracting the spot they “push it down”  (common word in steam cleaning) and as your carpet dries it will resurface. This method of cleaning is probably 80% of the market and in general does a good job at removing dirt with just a few draw backs like dry time and resurfacing of spots.

Hot Carbonated Extraction

Powerhead

Hot carbonated extraction is used by Chem-Dry as there main cleaning method. Chem-Dry uses The Neutral which has a pH of 7 (water is at a ph of 7). Chem-Dry try’s to approach carpet cleaning with a balance approach with water, heat, solution, agitation, and time. Chem-Dry uses 70-80% less water then your typical steam cleaner which equals dry times of 1 – 2 hours and uses 120 psi for spraying its solution which eliminates resurfacing spots. Also, Chem-Dry uses a powerhead for solution spraying, agitation,  and extraction for dirt and solution. This approach to carpet cleaning is sound except it takes more time to clean a room, the powerhead can sometimes catch carpet and cause a rip, and Chem-Dry is normally a bit more pricier then your typical steam cleaner or carpet rental. The Chem-Dry cleaning process is good when it comes to dry times, cleaning solution, and the psi at 120, but on the other hand will be a bit pricer around an additional $10-20.

Dry Solvent Cleaning

Encap

The closest thing to a dry solvent cleaning is Oxi Fresh. There process uses a pre-spreay to break up the dirt and traffic areas on your carpet and then they use an encapsulated counter rotating brush machine to remove and extract the dirt and solution. There process is fast and the dry time will be less then an hour which is great for the consumer. The cleaning results will be less then the steam cleaning and the Chem-Dry process because there is no extraction. Extraction is needed to fully remove the dirt the encapsulation machine is more like a vacuum but without the suction. To sum it up Oxi Fresh has fast dry times, price is on the medium end, and the cleaning process is fast.

Conclusion

I can’t say which process is better because each process has its advantages. Both Oxi Fresh and Chem-Dry are green certified and are safe for your home or business and both offer fast dry times. Steam cleaning offers deeper cleaning but longer dry times and harsher cleaning solution. Either way you can bet which ever process you pick your carpets will be cleaner then they were before and hopefully you’ll be happy with the results.