Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Successfully Maintaining Wool Carpets

Please note: these are not instructions for taking care of a wool rug, or an oriental rug.
Oriental rugs should always be cleaned in a rug plant by professionals, not at your home. “Why not at my home, so and so cleaning company did it before?” many ask. If you had your oriental rug successfully cleaned before, consider yourself fortunate. These rugs may have loose dye that will bleed or crock. You may have 10 colors in your rug and only one bleeds. This can be cared for and prevented much better at a rug plant, plus the cleaning, dusting and drying process is far superior than what can be done at your home. If you decide to spot clean your Oriental rug, make sure you test every color separately for color fastness. You test for color fastness by taking a white cotton towel that has been dipped with a small amount of wool safe cleaner, and then patting the towel on each color separately.

Regular Maintenance of your wool carpets
If you have wool carpets, get rid of all your store bought carpet cleaning spotters. Many of these products not only leave behind dirt attracting residue, they also have a high pH that is too aggressive to use on wool and can ruin your carpets.
Use a product that indicates on the packaging that it is wool safe. Using too high a PH cleaner on your wool carpet can turn the fibers brown or yellow.
High PH cleaners will also break down the cuticle or hard scaly surface that holds the fiber together. Breaking down the cuticle leaves you with a fuzzy mess. When using a wool safe product – blot. Scrubbing will also cause the fiber to fuzz out.
Do not get bleach on your wool carpet. Bleach will dissolve wool carpet and leave a hole behind.
As with all carpet, vacuum as often as you can, at least once a week.

You want your wool carpet to dry quickly when it is cleaned. If the carpet takes too long to dry it can turn yellow or brown. Your professional Sarasota carpet cleaner will run an air mover to help dry the carpet faster while he is there. He will also give you instructions so you can help the drying process to happen quicker after he leaves.
Much effort, training, and specialty products go into cleaning wool carpets correctly. That’s why using the right professionals like those at Overturf’s Cleaning makes this job a successful one with no headaches down the road. You also want to be sure the carpet cleaner you use is IICRC Certified. That means he has undergone formal training and has received at least some education in carpet cleaning. At Overturf's Cleaning, we help you avoid uneducated, uninformed, and even downright unscrupulous carpet cleaners by providing the most outstanding service experience ever, guaranteed.