The Skinny About Cleaning

So why call a professional carpet cleaner? Why pay someone to do what you may be able to do yourself with a little red machine rented at the grocery store?

The same question could be asked about any other service provided in your home I suppose, but let me tell you a little about how we do what we do. Most carpet manufacturers require regular carpet cleaning as a condition of their warranty. Most consumers don't even know that (who reads the warranty?). But why not use the little red machine?

Think of carpet cleaning as a three legged stool with one leg being equipment, one being chemistry, and the third technique. Talking about equipment first, the home machines are designed first and foremost not to do damage. The red machine guys don't want liability claims so they give consumers a machine that can't hurt anything, but unfortunately that dramatically limits the cleaning power. Our truck mounted equipment for instance can deliver water that is 200 degrees at the nozzles, pressure of hundreds and even over a thousand  pounds per square inch, and suction power that can even remove water from under your carpet but is more than enough to break blood vessels if applied to skin. All that power provides an amazing ability to clean, but can be very dangerous in that hands of someone who is not specially trained to use it.

The chemistry of cleaning is vitally important to the cleaning process and to the safety of you and your family. Proper cleaning generally requires us to dramatically raise the PH level of the carpet. Just how high that level must go depends on a great many factors including the fibers used in the carpet, the kind use the carpet gets and the types of soil to be removed. After cleaning that PH level must be returned to normal and all chemical residue must be removed. The chemistry of cleaning must be evaluated and adjusted on every job, and requires a high level of expertise.

Leg three is technique and it is only acquired through training and experience. Folks using the red machine often tell us how their carpet was wet for two or three days after they cleaned it. You cannot over clean a carpet but you can certainly over wet one, and do real harm. Imagine that machine spraying out luke warm water and soaking your carpet right to the floor. Then the relatively low suction it provides in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to get that water back up, sucks the water from the top of the yarn and leaves it saturated down below. The top third of your carpet now appears to be clean, but all the dirt, contaminants and water is still sitting down deep. The carpet is not clean, and it can literally stay wet for days, allowing the growth of bacteria and mold.

You wouldn't diagnose your own medical issues right? Well we are not doctors, but our technicians have years of specialized training, experience, and certifications that the average consumer simply cannot get by reading the tag on the red machine. Their training and experience allow them to use the best equipment to safely and effectively clean your carpets. Carpet cleaning is about creating and maintaining a healthy home for you and your family. Trust a professional to be your healthy home partner!

Who's Crawling on Who?

Did You Know We Clean Air Ducts?

Have you ever given a thought to what is inside the air ducts of your home? Our air ducts are certainly out of sight and therefore out of mind, but all the air in our homes travels through these spaces 3 to 4 times an hour on average. It stands to reason that the condition of our air ducts can and will have an effect on the quality of the air we breathe and our quality of life.

The picture is not meant to scare anyone. We all live in blissful ignorance about the contaminants in our homes but it is helpful to know that we can take steps to limit our exposure to many of them. It would be unthinkable not to wash our dishes after using them or our clothes after we wear them. Do you know that the carpets our kids and grandkids are crawling and playing on are cleaned only every 18 months on average, and that most people never clean the air ducts in their homes? Our carpets and air ducts are exposed to all the same contaminants (and worse) that our other washables are but we tend to let them go because they don’t look bad.

Air duct cleaning, like carpet cleaning, removes those contaminants. Those include every day soil and dust, but also dust mites and their waste, molds, germs, and the innumerable pollutants travelling through the air. It is not possible to live in a contaminant free environment, but as your healthy home partner, we certainly want to offer our clients the opportunity to live in the cleanest, healthiest environment possible. Regular carpet cleaning (at least once a year), and periodic air duct cleaning (every 3-5 years) are important parts of creating and maintaining that healthy home for your family.

The cleaning services we offer are certainly about what you can see, as we leave your home sparkling clean. We are equally concerned though about cleaning what you cannot see because we know you and your family deserve the cleanest, healthiest home possible.

Scot