Monday, July 16, 2012

Choosing a Rug Cleaning Service


Choosing a rug cleaning service can be a frustrating thing.  You can spend a lot of money on a fine hand-made floor covering and you a trusted rug cleaning service to take care of them for you.  Whether you need it cleaned occasionally, repaired, or need rug pad to help keep it in good shape.   So with all the choices out there how do you weed through them and come up with the best businesses to choose from.

The first rule is to never hire a carpet cleaner to perform this service in your home.  The equipment they use works great on your carpet but is not meant for this job.   It would be impractical to expect someone to bring the equipment necessary to your home to be able to perform this job properly.  There is equipment to dust, wash, and dry these fine floor coverings.  Most homes do not have enough space to set these systems up and do it cost effectively.  So look for a rug cleaning service that will do the cleaning in their office.

There are plenty of other things to look for to make sure you get a quality company doing the work for you.  Some of these include experience and education.  Another good idea is to ask others for a referral. Referrals are some of the best and most dependable ways to find good companies to do work for you. To read more about this you can go to this article and read the rest. 

Friday, July 13, 2012

Monday, July 9, 2012

How to Remove Toner From Carpet


How do you remove toner from carpet?  As professional carpet cleaners we get this question from time to time.  This usually happens in a business that has copiers or printers that use lots of toner because occasionally they bust or leak.  When this happens you will need to know how to remove toner from carpet properly so that you will not permanently stain the fibers. 

Toner is not a liquid and should not be treated as one or you could set the stain permanently. Toner is actually a very fine powder.  Since it is a powder the most important thing you can do is to keep it dry and vacuum, vacuum, vacuum.  Choose a vacuum that has suction and no brush bar or beater bar.  If you were to use a vacuum with a brush or beater bar it could push some of the powder further down into the fibers or the backing causing it to be more difficult to remove.  When vacuuming, make sure to do an extremely thorough job.  Spend way more time on this then you might otherwise to insure that all the loose powder is removed. 

Some of the powder residue may still be left in the fibers and further cleaning may be necessary.  If this is the case, then use some dry cleaning fluid or rubbing alcohol to flush out any remaining residue.  This can then be followed with some clean fresh water and vacuuming.  Make sure to leave the carpet as dry as possible when you are finished with the spot removal.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Furniture Cleaning


So you just bought new furniture and you want to keep it looking good for years.  A proper furniture cleaning program should be implemented to insure that this happens.  This should include regular vacuuming, periodic cleaning, and fabric protection being reapplied after cleaning.

As with carpet, rugs and draperies, your upholstery needs to be vacuumed on a regular basis. Since vacuuming can remove 75% of all soil in the fabric this is the best way to keep your upholstery looking and smelling great.  When vacuuming your upholstery, don’t use a brush bar or beater bar vacuum attachment.  Just use the suction.  This will prevent any damage to the fiber. 

Then from time to time periodic cleaning will be needed to remove the rest of the soil that vacuuming does not remove.  Vacuuming can only remove dry soil, but some soils are oily or sticky and cannot be removed by vacuuming alone.  If your fabric is synthetic then cleaning or spot cleaning it yourself should be fine.  If your furniture is cotton, silk or another natural fiber you should consider letting a professional cleaning company do the furniture cleaning for you.  Natural fibers are more delicate and can take special training and chemicals to get the results you want.

If you keep fabric protection applied to then the likelihood that you will spill something on the fabric that cannot be removed is slim.  Furniture protection should be reapplied every 12 – 18 months especially after cleaning.  If you have to do some furniture cleaning sooner than that then it would be a good idea to reapply the furniture protection at that time.