When your home’s carpet becomes dirty, dingy, or stained, it’s time to have it cleaned. Keeping your carpets clean keeps your home looking spic and span. Cleaning your carpets also helps remove dirt, grime, allergens, and mold that gets trapped in the fibers.
Professional carpet cleaners have a slew of techniques they can use to treat your carpet and make it look brand new. Different carpet cleaning methods, from dry carpet cleaning to spot cleaning, work on specific types of soiling and require various types of cleaning tools.
Explore the best types of carpet cleaning methods for cleaner floors and a healthier home.
Shampooing
Shampooing is a carpet cleaning method commonly used in the middle half of the 20th century. Shampooing, however, has fallen out of favor with most professional carpet cleaners due to long wait times for drying and the potential for shampoo residue on the carpet fibers.
The shampooing method uses a shampooing machine that resembles a vacuum. The machine is equipped with a rotating brush and tank that holds the carpet shampoo solution. When the machine turns on, the cleaner ejects shampoo into the carpet fibers, breaking up dirt with the rotating brush and creating a cleansing foam.
Shampooing is generally one of the least effective carpet deep cleaning methods. Although it can help make extremely soiled carpets look cleaner, it typically leaves a filmy residue behind that traps dirt in the carpet fibers. Shampooed carpets also take a long time to dry, which is inconvenient for the home’s occupants and may encourage mold growth.
Hot Water Extraction
The hot water extraction carpet cleaning method, also called steam cleaning, uses hot water applied at a high pressure to clean a carpet. The hot water moves into the carpet fibers and dissolves dirt and grime with this method.
Hot water extraction often includes using a cleaning agent, which is pushed into the carpet with the hot water and agitated with a brush. The cleaner is left to soak into the carpet; then, it is extracted with special equipment that rinses the chemical out of the carpet and pulls the moisture into a holding tank.
While hot water extraction is an excellent choice for cleaning area rugs that can dry outdoors, it is not an ideal carpet cleaning method for fully carpeted homes. The enormous amount of water and cleaning agent used for the job requires large trucks and equipment.
This method often pushes moisture into your carpet pad, which can cause long-term problems like moisture damage to the underlying substrate. It also takes several hours to dry, and sometimes stains appear worse after cleaning than before.
Bonnet Cleaning
The bonnet carpet cleaning method is a decent option for surface-level cleaning. Bonnet cleaning, also known as spin cleaning, uses a machine with a heavy-duty spinning pad to break up stains on the top portion of your carpet’s fibers. The spinning element on the machine contains a cleaning agent and helps absorb oil and dirt from the surface area of the carpet.
Bonnet cleaning is most often used in large, public spaces where carpets need superficial cleaning. This includes hotels, conference centers, schools, and corporate work buildings. The benefit of bonnet cleaning is that it doesn’t require a lot of moisture, which is ideal for areas where a long dry time is not feasible.
Although bonneting may work for superficial cleaning, it is not the best carpet cleaning method for homes that need to sanitize their carpets. Bonnet cleaning tends to push the dirt down further into the carpet fibers, causing grime build-up.
Encapsulation
The encapsulation carpet cleaning method is a more recent approach to removing stains, dirt, and oils from carpets. The technique uses special synthetic detergents that crystallize when dry, forming a powder that the carpet cleaner removes once the cleaning process is complete.
This method is called encapsulation because dirt particles are encapsulated into the crystallized powder as the detergent dries. Once swept or vacuumed, the powder and trapped dirt are released from the carpet. The method does not require significant amounts of water, offering shorter dry times than other methods.
Encapsulation is a suitable cleaning option for light routine carpet cleaning; however, despite its benefits, encapsulation is still not the best method for carpet cleaning for heavily soiled carpets.
The technology cannot penetrate deep enough to remove layers of debris. Also, the encapsulation crystals are limited in the number of particles they can hold for removal, so you may need to repeat the carpet treatment several times to get the desired results.
Spot Cleaning
Spot cleaning is a term for different stain removal techniques used to clean a small stain on your carpets. Carpet cleaning experts at DryMaster Systems recommend several methods for spot cleaning that you can use to remove a small spot on your carpet.
-
Spot cleaning for pet stains
An excellent way to clean up after your pet has an accident on your carpet is to use baking soda and vinegar. After patting the excess moisture out of your carpet, mix the vinegar and baking soda and apply to the affected area. Allow it to sit for a few minutes, then vacuum. The combination of baking soda and vinegar breaks up uric acid crystals in pet urine and helps to eliminate odors.
-
Spot cleaning for new stains
If you’ve just spilled a substance on your carpet, DryMasters recommends that you pat the stain until dry. Then spray a 10:1 water-vinegar mixture on the stain, allow it to penetrate your carpet fibers, then blot dry.
-
Spot cleaning for mud stains
If your pets or kids have dragged mud onto your carpet, start by either vacuuming up the dirt or removing the wet mud with a cloth or paper towel. Spray water onto the spot and blot to remove as much mud as possible. If needed, use a 10:1 vinegar spray in place of water, and repeat the process until the stain is lifted.
Dry Carpet Cleaning
The dry carpet cleaning method is the best carpet cleaning method for all carpets, especially for carpets that need deep cleaning. Dry cleaning removes up to 97% of bacteria and dirt from carpets, making it the best method to use when mold and other toxins are a concern.
Dry carpet cleaning uses a special cleaning agent to remove unwanted substances from your carpet. These dry cleaning solutions don’t require much water for activation, which leads to shortened dry times. Depending on your carpet’s thickness, the fibers can dry in as little as 45 minutes to a few hours.
Unlike other methods, dry carpet cleaning accesses the entire length of your carpet’s fibers to remove dirt and grime. This ensures that dry cleaning effectively eliminates set-in stains that other methods can’t touch. Dry carpet cleaning also uses portable equipment, unlike hot water extraction, ideal for carpets in apartments, condominiums, or on the upper level of a stand-alone home.
One of the most significant benefits of dry carpet cleaning is avoiding excess moisture. Water can seep through the carpet pad into your subflooring in other methods. This may cause shrinkage, dry rot, or brown stains, which sully the look of your carpet over time. Dry cleaning uses minimal water, leaving a small amount of surface-level moisture that dries quickly and doesn’t get into your carpet pad.
Dry carpet cleaning is also safe for all types of carpets. Wet cleaning methods can damage carpets with fine fibers and cause buckling. The dry cleaning method is gentle and effective without tearing up your carpet.
What is the Best Carpet Cleaning Method?
If you are wondering, “what is the most effective carpet cleaning method?”The answer is dry carpet cleaning. The benefits of dry carpet cleaning far outweigh all other methods, aside from small spot cleaning you may perform when a simple spill or pet stain occurs.
Ideally, you should hire a carpet cleaning company to visit your home every 12 to 18 months to have your carpets professionally cleaned using the dry method. If you are looking for a dry carpet cleaning company in your area, choose a DryMaster Systems affiliate.
All DryMaster Systems carpet cleaning businesses have access to the most advanced dry carpet cleaning equipment on the market. DryMasters trains their affiliates on the best carpet cleaning techniques and ensures that every business owner knows how to keep their customers happy.
For heavily soiled carpets and routine cleaning, dry carpet cleaning with a DryMasters Affiliate is ideal. They will leave your carpet looking new and help you keep your home safe from allergens, mold, or bacteria hiding in your carpet fibers.
Call in the Cleaners for Your Carpets
If you want to keep your home’s carpets in excellent condition long-term, call in professional cleaners. Although you can clean your carpets yourself, it rarely yields the same results as a professional cleaner who knows what method to use for your carpet type.
Try working with a DryMaster Affiliate for beautiful carpets. Our affiliates use the best professional carpet cleaning methods available. Perfect for carpets in homes, offices, and hotels, the DryMaster cleaning method will leave your carpets looking, feeling, and smelling great.