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Nov 10, 2019 | Uncategorized

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa: Idea One – The Importance of Prespray: What doesn’t get pre-sprayed doesn’t get cleaned. 

Carpet cleaning Tulsa since 1998 has taught us many valuable lessons. One of the most important for carpet cleaning is that you must get the carpets clean. This probably seems extremely obvious to the average person that the job you were called there to do must be done. It’s a simple concept that gets skipped over many times. What is the first step to getting your carpets cleaned? Let us look at other cleaning processes to find a clue. 

There is an old adage that says “don’t reinvent the wheel”. Taking our cue from two other cleaning processes we built our own cleaning system. The dishwasher is able to clean your dishes without touching them, which is something you want with carpet cleaning also. The reason you want this separation is for wear reasons. This leads us to a Pro Tip!

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip: Blot, blot, blot.

Why are you told to blot your carpet when using a chemical or prespray on your carpet. All carpet is little ropes, twisted fibers that are next to other twisted fibers. Once these twisted fibers start to untwist they will mix together with other fibers around them. This will form clumps of carpet instead of strands. This effect looks somewhat like the back of a poodle. 

So if you rub the prespray into the carpet and use friction as your catalyst then you will start to untwist the fibers of the carpet. This can accelerate the wear process of the carpet in the one spot. In turn this makes that area look like a kid that has rubbed a balloon against his head for a while. All mixed up and messy. But unlike the kid with the messy hair your carpet won’t just lay back down. It’s now matted, or frayed looking until the rest of the carpet around it catches up to the extra wear that you have added to that one area of carpet. 

This is why you need to blot, so that you remove the friction and wear that comes from scrubbing the carpet back and forth. 

We use this knowledge to our advantage and use Teflon glides on our wands, we will cover more on that later. 

Ok back to Carpet Cleaning Tulsa: Idea One – Prespray.

So we have a dishwasher that can clean your dishes without touching them directly. Also we have a more direct example of a washing machine. The washing machine gets your clothes clean, another textile fiber that is very similar to carpet fibers. It is able to do so without damaging your clothes even though you wash them every week or so. 

Breaking down how those two processes work, dishwasher and washing machine. First step on both of them is a soak. They get the clothes or dishes wet and soapy. Then they give it some dwell time to let the water and soap be able to break down the dirt. This step also gets things that were once wet back into solution. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa example:

Have you ever found a glass that once had a cola drink in it? It’s dried into a dark brown ring around the bottom of the glass now. Or maybe an old cup of coffee is more your speed, with that ring of old coffee at the bottom. You could try to remove it right away. Take a sponge, soap and put in some elbow grease to rub that off the bottom of the cup or glass. This would take a while and take a good amount of energy. So let’s just get it back into solution instead. 

My science professor always told us that water is the universal solvent. So let’s take some hot water and let it set in the bottom of the cup. Wait for it to happen. Only a little bit later and the dark ring on the bottom just dissolves into the hot water with no scrubbing needed. 

So what do we get from this Carpet Cleaning Tulsa example? We see that force isn’t what starts the process in a dishwasher or washing machine it’s presoak or prespray. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip:

The extra hidden effects of a prespray. The first effect is easy, the soap breaks up the spot. Something more hidden is what else also happens from the prespray. We tell our customers to follow our same process when they clean their own carpets. Maybe that is with a small home carpet cleaner. Maybe that is with a simple shop vac and a spray bottle. The latter is a more powerful carpet cleaner because the shop vac is just pure suction. But remember to switch out the paper air filter for a wet filter. Otherwise you will end up with a play doh mess when the water hits the paper air filter in side the shop vac. 

Breaking water tension is a big benefit to a prespray that some people don’t think about. A hidden benefit. Carpet cleaning Tulsa since 1998, we are Complete Carpet. When you can get the carpet fiber to be wet, you can then rinse through the carpet and not just over the carpet. It’s like getting your hair wet. The first wave of water on your hair typically runs off. Why? Because the hair has some water tension. Break that water tension and the hair will absorb the water and let it rinse through the hair instead of over the hair. The same effect happens with carpet.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Ample Example:

Ever see a sports team dump the drink cooler on their coach after a win? The coach gets wet but not soaked. Now some teams go the extra mile. They dump a second drink cooler on the coach and this time it really gets him wet. That is because the first drink cooler mostly ran off of him and just damped his clothes. Since he was somewhat wet for the second one it would soak right through his clothes this time. 

The prespray also softens up the dirt and sugars in the carpet. Just like our Carpet cleaning Tulsa example above. You can get the grime in the carpet to mix in with the water and become more water soluble. This in turn will aid the rest of the cleaning process. But remember that you can not clean something until you have put it into a state that can be cleaned. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa example:

Ever worked on a car? Ever get grease on your hands, maybe from cooking. Have you tried to remove that from your hands with cold water? Then you know what we are talking about. The water just beads up and rolls off your hands. Now if you add some grease cutting soap, like Dawn or maybe fast orange. Now the grease breaks down and can be rinsed away with just water. Because it’s now in a state that can be cleaned or rinsed away. 

So let us review what we have so far about prespray:

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Idea One: Prespray review:

1. Prespray helps remove friction in the cleaning process.
2. Prespray helps to break down the dirt and oils in the carpet.
3. Prespray helps to remove the initial water tension of the carpet.
4. Prespray help make for a better suction seal between the carpet and the wand.

That last idea there we haven’t covered yet. It’s a very important one though. The last part of the prespray process, you could say the whole reason for the prespray process is so that the dirt in the carpet can be removed. If you prespray anything and then just let it dry again you are just back at square one. Nothing changed since nothing was removed. 

So the prespray can also aid in the removal process. When you are steam cleaning the carpet you are rinsing water through the carpet to remove the dirt and grime. This is the same as our dishwasher or washing machine examples above. They want to use water to float away the dirt leaving clean dishes and clothes behind. Carpet cleaning Tulsa examples are to demonstrate the same can be done for carpet as well. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example:

The suction cup! We have all played with a suction cup before. Maybe it’s a young boy with a small bow and suction cup arrow. He is looking around to find a perfect glass target, because he knows if you shot something that is fluffy that his arrow won’t stick. But something that is shiny will do the trick just right. After many failed attempts his father finally comes in and helps him. What does he do? He licks his suction cup arrow. Gross you just licked my suction cup, why did you do that? Well the dad would explain that if the suction cup is wet that it will make a much stronger seal when it pushed against something allowing for a much better hold. 

So move that example into carpet cleaning. Down the line of the steps that we are going through you will find that we need to remove the dirt as our ultimate goal. We will use strong suction and water to rinse away the dirt. This part of the process only works if the suction has a good enough seal to lock down on the carpet and pull out the dirty water solution that we have made. If it doesn’t lock down enough then you are just diluting the dirt in the carpet and spreading it around. 

This a problem with too many carpet cleaners. The process that they are using isn’t really cleaning the dirt out of the carpet, it is diluting the dirt and averaging it around in the carpet. Kind of like a little kid that was told to eat his mashed potatoes. Instead of eating all the mashed potatoes he eats half of them and thinly spreads out the remaining potatoes across his whole plate making it look like they are all almost gone. 

So to make sure that dirt can be gone from the carpet you need to have a good seal on the suction of the wand to pull that dirt, that is now soft and into solution from the prespray, out of the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Idea one: Prespray – Closing.

In closing let us leave you with this thought. “What doesn’t get presprayed doesn’t get cleaned.” You can apply this to everything in your life. Now that you know this concept you will start to see it everywhere you go. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa examples list:

1. Washing your hands, soap first.
2. Washing your car, soak that dirt then rinse it.
3. Washing your hair, lather it up then rinse it out. 
4. Grass stains on your kids clothes? Quickly get some shout on it.
5. Fill a sink with water and a bit of Dawn and leave your dishes to soak. 
6. Fingernail polish, you could spend the day chipping it off, but soak it then wipe it.
7. That dried on bug on your windshield.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa: Idea Two – How did we get good at carpet cleaning?

Carpet cleaning Tulsa is in our fiber. That history and fiber was earned through years of experience. For a decade we had the contract for the Tulsa Housing Authority. This provided a unique challenge to restore or save carpets so they could pass inspection. There is a high difference that happens here. One you have an inspection of the carpet to make sure it measures up to the right standards, other wise it must be replaced. Second, many times the person that lived there before had to be evicted and wasn’t caring for the carpet regularly or properly. 

There are two ways to approach a contract like this. First, you try to get the carpet cleaned and if it doesn’t pass inspection then you know it’s going to be replaced. Since they will replace the carpet if it doesn’t pass inspection you could get lazy or do not care. Secondly you could take it as a challenge and see if you could get all of them to pass the inspection. 

We were different then anyone they had used before because we would try a second time to pass inspection. This taught us the limits that a carpet can go and still come back. Once you find a system that works in a place like that you know you can confidently tell when you can or can not get the carpet cleaned. 

This history has also taught us that there are two reasons people get their carpets cleaned. First is because they want to enjoy their carpets again. We’ve all been there, I don’t want to lay on the floor because it smells weird. Maybe you’ve quit walking in your socks in your home because they don’t stay white. A new baby can really inspire your senses of clean carpets. Now you have a new appreciation for clean carpets since your fresh precious new one will put right into their mouth anything that gets on their hands. 

The second reason we have found that people want their carpets cleaned is because they can’t replace their carpets. If you can’t afford to put new carpet in your home then you switch to option two, get them as clean as possible. This is a special situation because you would like to have new carpet, but you can’t get new carpet. Or maybe you don’t want to replace the carpets. You are going to sell the house and don’t have the money to invest in new carpet.

Either reason to get your carpets cleaned we can help. We are going to nerd out just a little bit here. Carpet is fibers, typically nylon, and it is dyed to the color that your carpets are now. This fiber is still dyeable. For example, if you pour bleach on your carpet you will soon have white carpet. The opposite will happen if you pour black hair dye on the carpet you will not have white carpet, it will be black carpet now. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example part 1: What is on the carpet and what changes the carpet?

1. Black hair dye
2. Heinz Ketchup
3. Red Kool Aid
4. White Cool Whip
5. Hawaiian Punch
6. Dr. Pepper

Take this test and see if you can spot the items that will dye fabric a different color. This super list above half of those will physically change the color of your carpet. The other half will just be on your carpet waiting to be cleaned off of the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example part 2:

Think about your kids hair. If your kids come into the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of ketchup and started soaking their hair in the ketchup, you would probably question their motives, but you wouldn’t be concerned about their hair. 

Now if your kids came into the kitchen and started grabbing Kool Aid packets to soak their hair in. Now you would be concerned. You could now be confident that the color would not just wash right out like the Ketchup would have. 

Apply carpet cleaning Tulsa example to your carpet. Anything on that list that you thought would wash out of your kids hair should also wash out of your carpet. Conversely anything on that list that you think will change your kids hair, at least until it grows out. That probably will also physically change the color of your carpet. As a general rule of thumb, if it’s very colorful then it’s probably now a different colored carpet. If it’s dark and dirty looking then it’s probably just something on the carpet, like ketchup. Obviously with all universal examples there are always exceptions.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa take away: What do you do with this information!

1. Change what you let into your home. Like kids slime just shouldn’t be allowed past your front door. Hawaiian punch is another good example of something that shouldn’t cross your carpets ever. That stuff is like instant new colored carpet potion. 
2. Watch more carefully what is in your home. This looks like having areas for things that you know could harm your carpet. We once went to clean an apartment. This apartment was rented to a mechanic. This mechanic decided to rebuild his motorcycle engine in the middle of his living room. This was done without anything covering the carpet. The carpet was now a solid greasy, slimy black color. This was not the proper place to rebuild an engine. An epoxy coated garage floor would be the right place. So think about what you do have in your home and what should be allowed on your carpeted areas and your tiled areas. 
3. Respond quickly to higher threat situations. With this information you now know that some things need to be taken care of more quickly. For example if I spill some water on the carpet, oh well it will dry in time. If I spill some paint on the carpet on the other hand. Paint can be rinsed out if you catch it right away. But if you let the paint dry then the manufacture will give it a ten year warranty. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic 3:

This leads to a nice segue about caring for your carpet. Mainly that, you need to care for your carpet. All other surfaces it’s quickly evident that they need to be cleaned. Wood, tile, laminate flooring you will notice the grit and sand on the floor because there is nothing to hide it. Carpet on the other hand is great because, compared to the other surfaces, it is a much larger waste basket. It can hold more dirt and debris until you vacuum it. But that also means people regularly forget to care for their carpet. Much like a very large waste basket that you forget about until it starts to smell.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa tip:

So what are some great tips to help get long life out of your carpet?

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa tip 1.

Vacuum often and not often. You should have some time every couple days to pick up the entry dirt in your home. This would be the first five to ten feet coming into your carpet from dirt sources. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Examples; What are dirt sources in your home?

1. Back door leads to the back yard where there is just plain old dirt. An obvious dirt source since it actually has real dirt.
2. Front door leads to more dirt and grass. Funny how sometimes the most obvious places we overlook. How many times have you run out to the car to grab something and not even slow down a touch when you run back into the house to check your shoes? I know I have, and realized my error after my wife gave me the eye. You know that eye the one you give when someone has done something that is normally reserved for a child to thoughtlessly do. I shrugged and thought what? I then looked back to see a trail of sand I had walked into your freshly swept entry. Ohhhh I should have used the entry mat to clean my shoes first. 
3. The garage that holds your car, that has driven you all over the city. This can have lots of different kinds of dirt building up in the garage. Road dirt is the most common. Brake dust can also settle from the days drive. Also just wind and debris from the garage being open. 
4. Now for a more tricky one, your bed. Every day you get into and out of your bed in one area. The side of a bed typically has more wear than the rest of the bedroom.
5. From the kitchen comes the food and drinks. This can be a major source of dirt in you home, and also the stickiness. Especially with kids or teenagers. If you have an open drinks or food in the home policy then you need to make sure you follow up with consistent vacuuming so the food and drinks to become decoration for your carpet over time. 
6. Pets are a consistent source of work for any carpet cleaner. On the simple side they have hair that sheds and is coated in oils. Those hairs and oils lay on the carpet transfering to the carpet. That oil builds up over time attracting dust and dirt that sticks to the carpet and then needs to be cleaned out. 
7. Front of your couch. This area is more where the dirt collects. The couch doesn’t product any dirt, but the people or pets that are on the couch do. You can do regular vacuuming to keep that dirt and physical wear in check. Or you can put a rug in front of the couch to catch both the extra wear and food that gets dropped. Rugs are a great way to average out the wear that happens to floors that way the high traffic areas don’t wear out much faster than the low traffic areas. The rugs take the bulk of the wear leaving the rest of the floors more evenly worn. 

Carpet cleaning Tulsa tip 2. 

Once you can no longer vacuum the dirt out of your carpet it’s time for a good carpet cleaning. This will remove the dirt and also more importantly what the dirt is sticking to. If you could just suck the dirt off your carpet then your vacuum would do the trick. You need carpet cleaning once the dirt doesn’t just vacuum off the carpet.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: What sticks to my carpet?

1. Sticky – Sugars. This would be any soft drink or juice drinks. Have you ever spilled some orange juice on the floor, wiped it up only to find that it was still sticky when it dried? We all have. Ever spill some clear Sprite on the carpet only to see dark brown spots a few days later. It’s the sugar in the Sprite that the dust in the home is sticking to. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Sugars need very hot water to help dissolve the sugars. 
2. Oily – Butters. Ever drop a piece of pizza on the floor before?  You can try to wipe it up but it’s going to leave an oily residue. With in a few days the dust in the home will stick to the oils left on the carpet and it will turn brown. Carpet cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Oily needs a grease cutter to break down to be able to clean it out. 
3. Gummy – Kids slime. This one can be problematic. If not caught in time the kids slime can dry out into an almost rock like substance. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Do not let kids slime into your house. Or if you do, only let it in hard surface areas and not in any room with carpet. 
   1. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Use rubbing alcohol on a rag and use that to break down the kids slime. Be very careful and don’t pour it on the carpet directly. Also make sure you have a way to remove the slime as you are breaking it down. Maybe another rag or a shop vac to suck it up. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa tip 3. 

Use rugs to protect high wear areas in your home. Hallways are always worn faster than the rooms they connect to. This is because everyone uses the hallway to reach every room connected to the hallway. But everyone doesn’t travel to every room each time. So if there are three rooms connected to a hallway. Three people all go to the three different rooms. You now have one person in each room, but the hallway had three people walk across it even though each room only had one person walk across it. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa examples: Where are good places to put rugs and why?

1. Your front door. Yes shut the front door to keep the dirt out but put a rug in front of it to keep people from bringing the dirt in with them.  
   1. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip: Entry rugs should be three foot by four foot. Why three by four? Because most people walk over a rug. If the rug is bigger they have to walk on it. 
   2. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Don’t make your entry rug decorative. Just like in highschool you didn’t walk over your school emblom that was etched in the floor, sometimes you even put barriers around it. People don’t want to walk on your pretty entry mats. They don’t want to be the one that made your pretty entry mat dirty. 
2. Your back door. See above, all the same applies here also. 
3. From your garage. That road dirt from your car is very harsh on your home. 
4. Under your dining room table. Yes you know, the carpet you have in the dining room under the table where you eat you food? Put more carpet over that carpet so that your food doesn’t end up grinding into your nice carpet but the easier to replace rug. 
5. In front of your couch. Almost every single home we have been in when you move all the furniture you can instantly tell where the couch was sitting because of the wear pattern. The rest of the home you walk across the carpet to reach your destination. Your couch you sit down for hours. You shift your feet back and forth. You may even bounce your foot, or tap your foot. Every couple of minutes tap, tap, tap. It gets more wear than any other place in the home. 
   1. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Double the life of your rugs!! Rotate your rugs. If one side gets lots of traffic then every six months turn it so the other side gets the same amount of traffic. You can double the life your rugs this way. 
6. Down a hallway. We talked about this before. Hallways get all the traffic of every room they are connect to so they wear out faster then every room they are connected to. 
7. Any room that is all wood or tile could use a rug. Why put carpet in a room without carpet? In one word, Sound. Carpet is a great sound deadener. Have a room that is very noisy and cathedral like when you are talking. Add a rug to the room and it will absorb the bouncing sounds. Run your hand along the walk of a movie theater and you’ll notice they carpet even the walls to make a more quite experience. 

So why should you use rugs, now that you know where to use them and why. Well rugs help you to absorb the extra wear that areas of your home get. The high traffic areas compared to the low traffic areas. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro tip: Rugs are easier and cheaper to replace the whole rooms of carpet. So put rugs on the high traffic areas to take the extra wear so the carpet below can last longer. 

Yes all the carpet will wear out over time. But many times the strip of carpet in front of your couch is really worn out and yet the carpet across the rest of the room is still in good shape.  

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip: Put a Rug on it.

Put a rug over an already damaged area of carpet to make a room look like great carpet again. This is the last step option. But if your carpet has already had too much wear in areas and wasn’t maintained a rug can be a great refresher to get the rest of the life out of the carpet without needing to replace all the carpet. Just add a rug. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Customer Question: Hot water does it matter and why?

We steam clean carpets. Carpet cleaning Tulsa since 1998 we have seen how this can be confusing to customers. Wouldn’t live steam hurt my carpet? Is the water really that hot? Is this shampooing carpets? Is this a hot water extraction of my carpets? Over the years we have been asked the same question in many, many different ways. The core concept is what do we do and why. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Idea 1: Why is hot water better than cold water. 

For carpet cleaning, the main goal is to dissolve the gunk in the carpet into the rinse water so that it can be sucked out of the carpet and carried away. The pre-spray helps to break down the gunk in your carpet. The strong suction helps to lift up the gunk in your carpet. And the hot water helps to rinse out the gunk in your carpets. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: Back to high-school.

For this example we’re going to transport you back to high-school into the chemistry lab. There you are all bright eyed and bushy tailed. The world is an amazing place just waiting to be unlocked. And today you are going to unlock the power of water. Yes the teacher has set up an experiment for the class. You see a beaker, some sugar and salt and a pitcher of water. We are going to learn about the effect of heat on water as a catalyst to dilution. Seems very complex and we scratch our head until we realize that was a fancy way to say we are pouring sugar into cold and hot water and seeing the difference. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa fake class Test A:

Pour sugar in a cold beaker of water. So we all fill our beaker with cold water and grab our sugar and start to pour it into the beaker with the cold water. This creates a snow like effect in our beaker as all the sugar slowly drifts the bottom and makes a large pile. Well we are supposed to dissolve the sugar into the water, so we grab a spoon and start stirring. Around and around we spin the water. Slowly, very slowly the sugar starts to dissolve. This gets our mind gears into motion as we remember all those times we watched our parents make a big glass of iced tea. They took that super long spoon to turn that iced tea into sweet tea. Packet after packet they poured into the iced tea to make it as sticky sweet as humanly possible while still being drinkable. 

Our teacher likes our example of the ice tea and says that the sugar takes time to dissolve into the cold water because it is moving slow. So it requires assistance from us to speed up the mixing. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa fake class Test B:

Pour sugar into a boiling beaker of water. So we fill our beaker with cold water but this time we add heat to the bottom of the beaker and bring it to a boil. Once it is boiling, all the little bubbles popping up and out of the beaker. We start to slowly pour the sugar in. To our amazement the sugar starts as snow falling, but it quickly just straight disappears. The smart kid in our group quickly points out that this is just like when his grandma makes hot tea. She almost never needs to stir her hot tea when she adds sugar to it. We notice that the sugar dissolves into the water before it made a pile on the bottom of the beaker. The hot water and the bubbles from the boiling dissolved all the sugar for us with no help at all. 

Our teacher confirms that the hot tea example was correct. The water is now moving faster and can dissolve things more quickly. It is faster at breaking things down when it is hot. 

We all think to our regular lives for new examples, Carpet Cleaning Tulsa fake class example: Doing the dishes is much faster with hot water then when you use cold water. Maybe the last time you took a shower and someone else used up all the hot water. The soap takes more time to rinse out of your hair with cold water compared to hot water. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa conclusion:

Hot water speeds up dilution and that in turn makes for a much deeper carpet cleaning. The hotter water gets deeper into the carpet fiber so that it can provide a complete rinse of the carpet. Also the hot water allows for a faster carpet cleaning. Not a quicker carpet cleaning, we don’t want to take short cuts on your carpets. The faster the carpets get clean the less water that is needed to clean the carpets. The less water used to clean the carpets the faster the carpets will dry. The sooner the carpets are dry the sooner that you can fully enjoy the carpets again. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Super Pro Tip:

Damp carpet can be walked on as long as you remember that the damp carpet will clean the bottom of your shoe for you. So make sure you have clean shoes and you will just have rubber walking on nylon. We were finishing up a job a year ago and were out at the van rolling up the hoses. The customer came to us with a sad/concerned look on her face. She was embarrassed as she told us that she just let her dog in from the back yard. There were perfect paw prints all over her white living room carpet now because the damp carpet had just cleaned her dogs paws for him. Luckily we could just reclean that room and all was great again. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Different kinds of carpet cleaning machines.

This topic we are going to cover the quickness of a small carpet cleaning unit, the home or rental-able variety. Also, we will cover the versatility of a large carpet cleaning machine. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip:

For small spots in our own home we actually don’t use our big truck mounted carpet cleaning machine. Why you might ask? That is high quality carpet cleaning machine. It’s one of the most powerful carpet cleaning machines. It gets the water very hot and has suction for days. Why would you choose to use a little small unit. In one word, quickness. We don’t even use an actual small carpet cleaning machine, we use a small shop vac and a spray bottle of hot water. 

Again you ask why, with all that power in the van why a small shop vac? Because we can grab a shop vac and have the spot sucked up and removed before we have even got the big machine setup. When you are dealing with something that has just happened then speed is your ally. The quicker you can get it sucked up and removed the less it will soak in. Also it helps to reduce your friction to not wanting to quickly react to the problem. A shop vac is quick and easy to grab and only takes a few mins to use. Other carpet cleaners normally have multiple steps to getting them usable. 

Find ways to reduce the time it takes to do things so that you are more likely to actually get them done. With our hectic and busy lives many times things that take too long never end up getting done. So we recommend a spray bottle of water and a shop vac sitting near by so that when something happens you can easily grab both and be fixing the problem in minutes. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Steps to success: How should you address cleaning a spot?

1. Removal: First remove all that you can. Pick up and wipe up all that you can right away. This is why I like a shop vac, suck up all that you can before you do anything else. 
2. Rinse: Once you have removed all that you can it’s time for the rinse. If you try to rinse first then you will dilute what is there and potentially cause it to spread. Now that it’s all removed as best as you can now you can rinse out what is left. Water is the universal solvent and it’s best to do a couple of light passes to try to remove the spot.
3. Break down: Once you’ve removed the cause. Once you’ve rinsed out the leftover. Now it is time to use something to break down what is left. What is left can’t just be removed or rinsed out. Always use a product made for carpets, kitchen products are notorious for using bleach in them and that will pull not just the stain from your carpet but it will remove the color from your carpet also. 
4. Rinse: What? Why are we rinsing again? Well this is the magical last step that many times gets missed. You used a product to break down the remaining spot and it looks great now. The last step is important because the product you used to break down the spot is now in the carpet. Many spots come back not because the spot is still there, but because the chemical that was used to clean the spot is still there. That chemical’s residue is attracting dirt. So you use the same chemical to clean the spot again leaving more chemical in the carpet. We’ve seen some spots that are very big and very soapy because it never got a final rinse to leave the carpet both spot and chemical free. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip: How to use a home carpet cleaner, the missing step.

Let’s say you already have a nice home carpet cleaner. You have used it successfully but it doesn’t seem to stay clean for very long. This is because they use their soap in the water that they are cleaning with. We do not use carpet cleaning chemicals in our water. We always put them down as a prespray. This does two things, it allows the spot time to break down and get back into solution. It also gives you the ability to clean rinse out the spot and not leave soap in the carpet. If you are cleaning a spot with soap in your water then you are going to leave soap in the carpet. You can’t rinse out soap in the carpet with water that has soap in it because you will leave soap in the carpet. In easy terms, you can’t rinse soap with soap. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Conclusion: Different kinds of Carpet cleaning machines, Quickness of small vs versatility of large.

We want you to think of what you are trying to get done and pick the right tool for the job. A small spot needs quick attention, so grab something that you can use quickly. A shop vac to suck up the problem. Or maybe a towel or even paper towel. On the other hand a large problem might take more power and attention then just a quick clean up. Even if you call in a professional you need to also remove what you can of the spot so that it doesn’t keep soaking in. 

So to leave a capstone thought on this lets review the possible options. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa List:

1. Pick up what falls on the carpet. Like spilled chips or leaves from outside. Get them up before someone walks them into the carpet.
2. Wipe up what get on the carpet: A rag or a towel to absorb whatever has soaked into the carpet
3. Suck up what gets on the carpet: Sometimes it’s a bigger problem and needs a shop vac to suck up what is in the carpet. Like a plant being knocked over, or a pet having an accident. 
4. Call out a professional: This is where you have done steps 1-3 and there is still a problem that needs more attention and a deeper cleaning solution. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip #1: Always spray it.

This is the one thing we see the most when people have problems spot cleaning their own carpet. This one tip has the potential to make all the difference. Do not pour water or soap on the spot but always spray. If you pour it will spread and go deeper. If you spray, like putting windex on a window a mist so that it doesn’t run, it will dampen the carpet and it won’t spread. The goal is to absorb the moisture right back out so the spot comes out and doesn’t go into the carpet deeper. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip #2: Rinse Once, Dry Twice!

To get the spot out of the carpet means it must be removed. Yes first it must be softened up with some water or soap, but that is only to set it up for removal. Other wise you are just diluting the spot into the carpet more. Much like the kid that doesn’t want to eat his mashed potatoes so they just spread them all over the whole plate to make it look like they are all gone. So always dry twice for each time you get the carpet wet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip #3: Blot-don’t rub the carpet!

The goal is to absorb the spot back out. The temptation is to try to rub the spot out. Let’s rewind back to the carpets creation. Carpet is fiber that has been twisted and glued to the backing. As we walk on it the fiber slowly untwists and mixes with the other fibers. This is what we call matting the carpet. If you rub the carpet you accelerate the matting of the carpet by untwisting the carpet fibers. You might get the spot out but at the cost of the texture of the carpet. So always blot to save your fibers. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip #4: Prespray like your dishwasher!

Your dishwasher is able to clean your dishes without touching them at all. Think of doing your dishes by hand. You could try to scrub that dried on spaghetti with a sponge and elbow grease. OR you could put a little water and dawn on it and let it set for 60 seconds. And then the spaghetti just slides right off. So do the same with spots. Lightly dampen them and let them set to soften them up so that they can be absorbed back out of the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Experience leads to better cleaning: Over 20 years creates a system well refined.

For this section we want to cover how experience can make all the difference and also make no difference at all! What? How is that possible? Everything in life is practice. Everything we do it us practice what we will do. So if you pick up great habits you will instill those deep down over time. The same is true if you let things slide, you will be always practicing the wrong way to do things. We are in a crazy unique time in history that we can jump on youtube and see a master at something to show us the correct way to do something and we can become step by step experts in a matter of minutes. 

There is no proven path without the experience of trying good ideas over and over until you create a great system of ideas. Once you’ve got this great system now others can follow that system to achieve the same success. 

We’ll get back to Carpet Cleaning Tulsa in a minute. Let us stay on this topic for just a moment. We are all told that what we do in private doesn’t matter because it is private. This is really terrible logic because what we do in private is us practicing for what we will do in public. Every great basketball player put in countless hours honing their craft in private so that when they step on that court it would be automatic. How we do anything is how we will do everything. We are all creatures of habit. So make sure the habits you are practicing in private when no one is looking are the ones that you want to be when people are looking. 

How does this apply to carpet cleaning? We always practice doing it the right way. Because we are forming a habit, so why on earth not make that habit the right way? We clean behind every door. Why clean behind every door? Who is going to look at the few inches behind a door anyway? This habit sets our meter for the rest of the job. If I’m willing to clean even behind the door then what excuse do I have to miss any other carpet in the home? None. 

Here is a free Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Parenting Tip:

When my kids were young they hit the point that they wanted to argue with their mother. They wanted to delay agreeing with their mother or hopefully not have to agree at all. I would come in and stop it right in its tracks. “You say yes Mommy to what your mommy asked you to do”. And as soon as they would say “Yes Mommy” they turned and did it. The only thing that had changed was that they had verbally agreed. Now they felt compelled to do it. There is power in what we say or agree to. This is why people will argue on a topic, because as long as there is an argument then they don’t have to do anything yet. But once they agree then it’s set. 

We all live this out all day every day. Why do you open a door that way? Why do you tie your shoes that way? Why do you vacuum your carpets in that pattern? Why do you brush your teeth with that hand and for that long? Why do you fold or not fold your clothes before you put them away? Why do you lock or leave your doors unlocked? These and countless more are all habits that we learned from others. Our parents told us to say thank you and have manners. So now we feel those that don’t thank people for doing something nice are rude people. Other people that their parents never taught them to say please and thank you don’t feel it’s rude because they never learned to do it. 

Back to our unique place in history, where we can youtube a topic and find an expert in a field gives us a proven step by step process that they have proven works through their years of experience of trial and error. We can become experts in training right off the jump. Every other generation had to find a teacher and spend time and money to get them to open up and share their secrets with them. This could take years, decades or longer. Now we can find a proven path to success in days. 

As the old adage goes, don’t reinvent the wheel. Sometimes we don’t want to spend the time to learn a proven system we want to hire someone that has already spent the time to master a proven system. Now we move from going step by step following a youtube video, re-watching each section multiple times to try to remember what comes next, to hiring someone that has memorized all the steps so they already know what comes next. 

This is where the difference between knowing a proven path and being an expert finally comes in. Failure! We believe that you can not teach someone to be successful. What you teach them is every why they can fail and how to avoid them all. Once you avoid all failures we call that success! A baby doesn’t learn how to walk, they learn how not to fall in 360 degrees. We’ve all seen a baby lean forward only to fall on their backside. Next time they lean back only to fall forward. Next they lean forward, but quickly correct to lean backwards and this bounce back and forth is what we call standing. Right now you are shifting or leaning in some why to always stay standing. You fall once something you didn’t expect to cause you do fail gets by your I will not fall guard. 

So experience teaches you all the ways you can fail and how to avoid them. The experienced technician walks in and sees a problem and remembers all the ways they failed to fix it in the past. So they avoid the mistakes and go right to the fail proof solution. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example Story: This has happened many times, failure being our teacher.

I will tell on myself for this example. It was high-school. It was basketball season. I had longer hair and instead of cutting it short for basketball season I was just using lots of gel to hold it in place. One day I am in a hurry between school and basketball practice. I rush in, wet my hair, grab the gel, and it wouldn’t set. So I grabbed a hair dryer to speed up the gel drying. Nothing happened. What was wrong? No time to figure it out running late to practice. 

As I run out of the house, my little sister chases me yelling at me. 

“What did you do?!?”  

Huh what do you mean what did I do? 

“I can smell it all over you!” 

What can you smell? 

“You smell like Sun-IN! My hair lightening product, what bottle did you use?”

Uhhhhh, I thought gel.

“Well as long as you don’t dry it and rinse it out you should be fine”

Uhhhhh, yeah I blew it dry. 

Long story, even longer, two weeks later I learned the importance of knowing what products my sister had in the bathroom before I grab something. I learned the hard way as my very dark brown hair turned a very weird red blonde color. I learned the hard way as I finally did cut all my long hair short because of the mistake I had made. Guess what? I have never again grabbed any bottle of chemical without first making completely sure that I knew what was in it. That failure reset the rest of my life. 

Harvard Business Review had an article called “A Rush to Failure” Many books have been written on the topic, they quicker you fail the faster you find success. Every time you fail you naturally respond by trying something different next time. We have all burned our hand on a hot pot. Maybe more than once. But we don’t burn our hands every time we touch a hot pot, we learned. That avoiding failure, is what we call success. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Personal Example:

When my son was young he would take his big lego blocks, make a tower out of them and put the tower into my sub speaker under my desk. This made a wonderful rattling sound. In response, I would have to spend half an hour trying to fish out the blocks. After many failed attempts to teach him, a two year old boy, that the blocks don’t go in the speaker I had an idea. I found a 60 hz test tone and loaded it up. I sat in wait as my little boy built his tower of lego’s. He went for his favorite pastime of loading them into my speaker. Just as he slid the blocks into the speaker I played the very low test tone. This caused the blocks to rattle and the air actually pushed them back out of the speaker. This completely startled him and from that day forward he never went near my speaker again. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: What is actually happening on each pass of the wand, Carpet Cleaning patterns.

There are many different ways to clean carpet. Yes there are different steps and products to use. But for this section we are going to talk about the actual, physical movements of cleaning carpets. We talked before about not scrubbing the carpet, because it would fray and matt down the carpet. Remember to blot the carpet to not wear out the carpet fibers.

What are carpet cleaning patterns? This is the path that you move the wand over the carpet and when you do or do not pull the trigger to wet the carpet. So a dry path is one where you only suck up the carpet and do not use any water. A wet path is when you pull the trigger and put water down. This is very important because without following a pattern you would just clean carpet with the trigger spraying water at all times. The problem is that when you are moving up the carpet the water is being put down on the carpet but the suction is not sucking it back up. So if you don’t go back over that path again it will only have gotten wet and never got dry. This would be like spraying hot water on your plate with dried on spaghetti and just leaving it there. Or putting fingernail polish remover on your polish but never wiping it off.   

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #1: Up dry and down wet.

The most simple pattern is to clean up and down over the exact same path. Repeating this until that path is clean. The up dry stroke will suck up the prespray and already softened up dirt and the down stroke will rinse out the remaining dirt. By only having water on the down stroke means that you don’t have to repeat an area after it is cleaned since it was extracted without too much water being left in the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #2: A-Frame Down wet and Up dry to the side.  

This pattern you clean down one path, pulling the trigger to suck up the water that you are putting down. When you move back up, without the trigger pulled so no water, you move to the next area. This will create that looks like tents or the letter A. Clean down wet, move up dry to the right or left, repeat this across the room until you hit the wall. This pattern you adjust the speed that you clean down, wet, to remove the dirt in one pass. So dirtier areas you move slower and cleaner areas you go normal speed. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #3: Full trigger straight up and down quickly. Followed by full dry up and down.

This pattern is to get the carpet hotter. Some things need the heat of the water to soften them up. Think of trying to get butter off of a plate. Sure some soap will help, but sometimes just hot enough water will dissolve it. Remember in high-school where we took a beaker of cold water and poured sugar into it. It all fell to the bottom and we stirred it until it all mixed in. Or Carpet cleaning Tulsa real world example: we have had an Iced Tea and added sugar to it to make it a sweet Iced Tea. This took a lot of stirring. Next we put the beaker over a hot pad and brought it to a boil. Now when we poured the sugar into the boiling water it dissolves all by itself into the hot water. Carpet cleaning Tulsa real world example: We have all made or seen someone make a hot cup of hot green tea. Maybe a nice black coffee. Now when we add sugar slowly to either the sugar just dissolves into the hot water. 

So full trigger, hot water on both the up and down stroke. Do this quickly once or twice to scrub out the tough spot. Now follow this up with a full up and down dry only stroke. Then repeat the full wet stroke. You must do a full dry stroke every one or two full wet stoke so that you don’t over wet the carpet. Think of it like this a wet up stroke is water that has diluted the dirt in the carpet but has not removed it yet. It’s like spraying Windex on your water or using the water on your windshield by not using a wiper to remove the water. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #4: Half strokes. Wet down, dry up.

This is wet down, dry up. Move over half a stroke. You use this stroke when are area needs extra attention, extra heat and extra suction. You make one clean pass down with water and dry up. Get it to where you want it. Repeat until you get the right speed to break up the dirt. Now move over a half a stroke so that you back half of the wand to re-cleaning the last stroke and the front half is cleaning a new path. This lets each area get cleaned twice. It also lets every area get a pre-clean before the full cleaning. This little extra dwell time after the pre-spray helps to break up the dirt and adds more heat to the carpet. This is the most common stroke when you have dirty carpets. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #5: Full trigger full clean. Followed by full dry.

This pattern is when you clean a whole row of carpet with full trigger. When you get to the end you then do a full extraction stroke back across the whole area that was cleaned to dry it all. This pattern gets the carpet more wet and not as dry and the rest of the patterns, but can be faster and keep the water temperature higher on smaller cleaning machines that can’t keep hot water at the wand with intermittent water flow. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern #6: One wet, two dry. 

This is for smaller carpet cleaning machines. When you have a smaller carpet cleaner that doesn’t have as much suction as a larger carpet cleaner then you end up with more water being put down then what it can suck back up. To compensate for the lower suction you need to do extra dry strokes. This is the main reason that people will complain that their carpets smell bad for a day after they clean their own carpets. The carpets are still wet and it is like a wet towel left on the floor. The next day it smells like mildew. 

To correct for the lower suction you can just do more dry strokes then the wet strokes. This is also used when you use a lot of hoses on a large machine. The farther away from a machine you get the lower the suction lift is. This translates into less vacuum power to remove the water. This turns into longer dry times and carpet that starts to smell. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Cleaning Pattern Pro Tip #1: Shorter is stronger!

All these cleaning patterns are designed around the amount of suction that you have and the amount of water needed to rinse the dirt out of the carpet. So let’s take a step back and understand why this matters, what is happening to make this change.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Super Example: If you want to drink from a glass we will grab a straw.

Now if you grabbed a small coffee stirrer straw to drink a 32 ounce big gulp it would take you a long time no matter how hard you sucked it could only move the small amount of liquid through the small straw. 

Now let’s jump to the other extreme! What if you took a fifty foot long garden hose and tried to use it as a straw for your 12 ounce coffee. You would probably wouldn’t have enough suction power to pull the 12 ounces of coffee through all fifty feet of garden hose. When you are cleaning carpets it’s the same way.

The longer the hose you are cleaning with the more air space there is inside that hose. For every foot of extra air space is another foot of air that has to be moved or sucked to move whatever is at the end of that hose. So if you pull out 500 feet of hose you would have to have a machine that can pull 500 feet of air and water at one time! 

So when you are using a small machine think of the length of your straw you would use to drink with. If it was curly and 2 feet long you would be sucking for a while to get the drink to travel through the straw. Use this mental example when you are dealing with any machine with suction. Always use the shortest length of hose that you possibly can, so that you get the maximum amount of suction from that machine. The shorter the hose the less air it must pull to draw down a suction.

You can use this information for your shop vac also. Use the five foot hose instead of the fifteen foot long hose and you will notice much stronger suction. Or if you are using a small carpet cleaner, or a portable carpet cleaner, then use 25 feet or less of hose to keep your suction at its maximum. 

Large truck mounted machines have a really big vacuum that can pull down the suction on 100-200 feet of hose quickly. If you want to put this knowledge into action then do this test. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Practical Test: Suction is the key to dry carpets.

The question then is how quickly do you get that suction. So take out the shortest length of hose that you have and put your hand over the end. You will see the hose jump and start to draw down as it pulls a full suction. So count how many seconds it takes to reach full suction. This should be about 1-2 seconds on the shortest section. The shortest section should allow the machine to reach maximum suction quick. Now add another section of hose and do the same test. Hand over the end and count how many seconds it takes to reach full suction. You will again see the hose jump and draw down. Keep adding sections of hose until you reach 5 seconds to reach maximum suction. 

Once you hit 5 seconds that is the most hose you want to use for that machine. At this point you will want to start moving the machine to match where you are instead of using more hose to get to where you want to be. 

Now why does this matter and how can you get around it. Well each time you do a cleaning stroke most people will pick up their wand and move it to the next area, thus breaking the suction. Each time you break the suction then you have to wait the 2-5 seconds for the wand to suck back down on the carpet to reach its maximum suction before you add water again. When you only spend 5 seconds on a carpet cleaning stroke you can see how you can double your cleaning time if you take 5 seconds just to reach full suction.

How can you avoid this delay every stroke? It’s so simple that it slips right past everyone. Don’t take the carpet cleaning wand off the carpet. If you keep it on the carpet all the time then you don’t break the suction. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example redux: Back to the straw example.

Close your eyes and imagine drinking a milk shakes. You are sucking strong to pull the thick milkshake through the straw. We have all had this happen, where the straw we are using is only half way into the milk shake. Once we hit air we lose all suction and start sucking air or small bits of milk shake. So we all take the straw and push it back down into the milkshake. This is what happens while cleaning carpet. You must keep the straw in the milkshake so that you can move it. Otherwise you end up just pulling air. 

So to apply this just cleaning with the wand staying on the carpet. This does take more effort, but not a lot of extra effort. But the results are huge. Think about it, if it takes 5 seconds or more to reach full suction and each stroke only takes 4 seconds then you never can pull all the water out. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Super Example #2: This is where a prespray can change your whole cleaning experience.

When you clean carpet without a prespray then you are cleaning dry carpet. That is similar to sucking through a straw with a hole in it. Because the end of the wand is on the carpet fibers and a lot of air is being pulled in with the carpet. As you pull the trigger you wet the carpet and now the head of the wand makes a better seal to the wet carpet.

If you start with damp carpet then you will start with a straw without holes in it. So it can reach full suction must faster! Yes the presray breaks down the dirt. Yes what doesn’t get pre sprayed doesn’t get cleaned. Also what doesn’t get pre sprayed doesn’t get as dry. Remember this, it has to get wetter to get drier. It seems counterintuitive but damp carpet will dry faster because the wand can draw down a stronger suction to pull water out of the carpet.

Think if you have four to five holes in your straw the faster you can cover those holes the more liquid you can pull through that hose. Other wise you are pulling air and leaving the liquid behind. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Ultra Tip: Oh this tip is big, so big that almost no one will do this tip without someone making them.

Let us say you have to use a long length of hose to reach a place far away from where you carpet cleaning machine is. Through a large house or building around a corner, down a hallway, up the stairs, down the hallway into a room within a room within a room and now you are lost. No other way to get here. So you make do and clean slow and do double dry strokes to try and get the carpet dry. Now as you keep cleaning you move closer and closer to the carpet cleaning machine.

REMOVE EXTRA HOSE! That super tip gets missed all the time. You start cleaning and just keep cleaning, not thinking to stop and remove the now extra length of hose since you are closer to the carpet cleaning machine. Our hoses are in fifty foot lengths and twenty five lengths. So each time you get fifty feet closer to the carpet cleaning machine we remove a section of hose so that we decrease the amount of time it takes to draw down a suction. This in turn dynamically increases the cleaning speed while at the same time reducing the amount of time it takes for the carpet to dry. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Unique Tip: Here is the simple bonus tip.

Don’t let there be holes in your straw. What does that mean? You would be surprised how many people don’t check their hoses to see if they are all connected in a way that doesn’t suck air.

Most common air leaks:

1. A loose fitting. Each time you turn the hose will also turn. This can slowly untwist the ends off the hose. You will notice a drag or whistling sound coming from your fittings the loser they are. This is like sucking on a straw with a long split in it. 
2. The connections between hoses are loose or cracked. This is solved by pushing the hose connectors closer together. 
3. The carpet cleaning machine is relieving too quickly. This is a maintenance issue. Every vacuum has to have a relief otherwise it would draw down suction until the machine broke. After 13-14 inches of mercury it should pull a spring and allow air into the machine so that the vacuum doesn’t collapse the machine, hoses and dump tank. Some times that spring gets old and rusted or loose. Now it is allowing air to slip in way before it’s reached full suction. 
4. SUPER TIP!: Your dump tank always has a lid or valve. Both of those have to be closed to be able to draw a vacuum from the end of the hose. Otherwise it will pull the air from the valve or tank lid instead of the end of the hose. Check your lid seal on a regular basis to make sure you are not leaking air. 
5. Broken wand. The wand is the end of the staw. It’s also the most used part of the machine. If it’s not cared for it can get beaten up and split or crack. Repair or replace the wand. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Magic Suction Review: 

1. Test your carpet cleaning machine.
2. Use the two to five second test to figure out how long of a hose your machine can handle and still pull quick suction.
3. Move your cleaning machine as close to the area that you are going to clean to reduce the length the water needs to travel and the power required to move that water. 
4. Shorten the length of your hose at every chance you get.
5. Keep the carpet cleaning wand on the carpet at all times to maintain even suction all the time. 
6. If you break suction make sure you wait enough time before you clean to draw down full suction again so that the water you put down can get sucked back out.
7. Use a cleaning pattern that matches you carpet cleaning machines ability to pull the water back out of the carpet.
8. Lower suction will need extra dry strokes to get all the moisture out.
9. Damp carpet gets dry faster then dry carpet. Because damp carpet draws down a suction faster than sucking air through the dry carpet.  
10.  Check for air leaks in your suction. Dump tank, dump valve, relief on the vacuum, hose fittings, the hose itself, and the wand. Are they allowing you to draw down a full vacuum or are the holes in your straw that won’t allow you to pull all the liquid that you can. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Practical Reasons: Why should you review and do all this about suction. What does the excessive attention to detail on suction matter really? 

1. The goal of carpet cleaning is to remove the dirt from the carpet. The faster you can remove the dirt the faster you are done. So quicker carpet cleaning when you can suck out the dirt quicker. 
2. Drier carpet. The second thing everyone complains about with carpet cleaning is that it takes a long time to dry and it smells. The quicker you remove the dirt the less water that you use to rinse the carpet with. The less water you use the faster the carpet will dry.
3. Less work. The quicker the dirt gets out of the carpet the quicker you can move on to the next area. Always keep your suction at top performance so that you can use less energy to accomplish the exact same thing.  Cleaner carpet in less time, drier carpet in less time. More energy for the rest of the carpet to be cleaned. 
4. Less chemicals and water usage. If the carpet is getting cleaned because the dirt if being more powerfully sucked out then you don’t have to go back over it over and over. 
5. Longer machine life. If you can reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning then you also reduce the amount of time the machine must run to do the same job. Now you can use that extra time savings to clean other carpets!

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Water pressure versus suction; A balanced cleaning approach.

Wet enough to clean, dry enough not to damage the carpet should be everyone’s motto. Modern carpet is all synthetic materials now. There was a time when it was made with natural fibers. It used jute backing and if you over wet the carpet it could shrink like a new cotton t-shirt. We remember when you would see carpet that had pulled away from the wall because it had shrunk. On the plus side that is no longer a problem. On the minus side carpet relaxes and gets bigger now so stretching carpet because there are wrinkles is the more common problems. We will talk more about stretching later on. 

Carpet can be cleaned over and over and over again without any damage to the carpet. Actually it’s better for the carpet to be cleaned on a regular basis with the proper cleaning process then not. Because dust is the universal sandpaper and leaving that in the carpet and walking on it will break down the carpet quickly. We’ve seen 10 year carpet that only lasted 4 years because it was never cleaned. The grit and sand ground up the carpet in short order.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Ample Example:

Imagine sitting in front of a fire warming your hands. It’s not a summer fire that would make you sweat. No this is a nice cold fall early winter fire where being close to the fire feels good. You can sit there talking to your friends for hours rubbing your hands together to stay warm. Now what if I poured sand over your hands and then your rubbed them together? You would rub for 30 or maybe 60 seconds and your hands would be rubbed completely raw. 

This is what happens to your carpet when dust and dirt builds up in your carpet. Every step you take across the carpet rubs the fibers together. If they are covered in dust and dirt then it’s like rubbing sandpaper over your carpet every step. It’s not your shoes that hurt carpet, it’s any dust and dirt on anyone’s feet, shoes, paws that walks across the carpet that hurts the carpet. 

Now if they carpet is nice and clean, from carpet cleaning or vacuuming, then the carpet fibers are just rubbing against themselves. They can last a long time just like rubbing yours hands against themselves in front of the fire. We have some customers that have had their carpets cleaned every month or two for years and they look like new still. 

Old carpet with jute backing you didn’t want to clean the carpets too often because the backing would shrink over time so you didn’t want to get it wet if you can help it. Now that carpet doesn’t react to water being wet doesn’t bother it if it is done right.

That brings us to our topic, how could it be done wrong? What is a balanced cleaning approach? Well we talked about suction in our last section and the importance of that. That suction needs to be equal or greater than the amount of water that is being put down. Let’s look at another example.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example mill #2:

A drinking fountain put out more water than I can drink so some of it goes down the drain. Now if I took a garden hose and tried to drink from that over a drinking fountain it will put out more water then I can drink or that could flow down the drain. Or we all have had at least once where we flushed the toilet only to discover that the water is not going down the toilet as fast as it is pouring into the toilet. We get that sinking feeling as we watch the water rise up and up until it crests over the top of the bowl and we panic. 

When it is in balance then the amount of water that is going in is the same amount of water that is going out so that it doesn’t overflow. How does this translate into cleaning carpet? You need to make sure that you have more suction than the amount of water that you put down on the carpet. Since the water is pressurized there is potential there to put the water down faster than you can suck it back up. When this happens you leave lots of extra water in the carpet. Just like when your toilet overflows. 

This in turn over wets your carpet that then sits wet for days as it dries. This excessive wetness will damage the carpet because now it’s not just the carpet fibers that are lightly wet and will dry in hours. Now the backing of the carpet is soaked and it will take days to dry. Now the glue in the backing of the carpet, which shouldn’t be wet, is not wet and soft breaking down the carpet. 

So we need to make sure that we balance the amount of water, the pressure of the water and the strength of the suction so that only the fiber gets wet and not the backing of the carpet. This can be achieved in a variety of ways. We will go over a few of them here. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Sample #1: Use lower pressure on your water.

This is a simple step that you just reduce the amount of water that you are using by lowering the pressure you are using since for most situations the suction is set or already at its maximum. You can also use the other techniques we have talked about on your cleaning patterns to get more suction per water use also.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Sample #2: Don’t pull the trigger to spray water as often.

Again with the different patterns that we talked about before you can reduce the amount of water by not pulling the trigger as often and allowing more suction time versus water time. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Sample #3: You can change the jets in your wand.

There are different sized jets for every wand. A small portable carpet cleaner will probably have a wand with one jet on it. A large truck mounted machine will have a wand with up to six jets on it. But those jets can be switched to smaller or bigger jets to increase or decrease the amount of water that is let through the jets as the trigger is pulled. This can make an amazing difference in the amount of water that is used. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Sample #4: The speed that you clean at.

The suction has to move over the wet carpet to suck up the water. So if you move too slowly the water sits in the carpet too long and soaks into the backing before the suction gets a change to suck it back out. A good example of this is if you have ever spray painted something. If you go too slow spray painting the paint will start to run down the wall. If you do lots of quick light passes it will do much better. So make sure you move at a good pace and go over an area lots of times quickly instead of one very slow time flooding the carpet and not sucking it back up. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Sample #5: Change the size and length of our vacuum hose.

You can adjust the pressure and flow of the water. You can also adjust the speed and flow of the suction also.  Having the right sized vacuum hose and drastically affect the suction that a machine can produce. For example if you have a small portable with a two inch wide hose that is fifty feet long it doesn’t have the power to draw that much suction area. But a one inch wide hose that is ten feet long would produce great suction. 

On the other side a big truck mount machine that has two hundred feet of one inch wide hose will be limited on the amount of suction at that length. But if you moved up to two inch wide hose at two hundred feet it would now be able to quickly draw down a lot more suction to move the air and water faster. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example Repeat: Remember the straw example from before.

With a small coffee straw you could not drink much faster because you are limited not by your ability to suck but by the smallness of the straw. If you got a large drink straw you would probably be able to drink twice or three times as fast. But if you got a huge garden hose you would be the limiting factor because you can’t suck that fast to move anything through that really big hose. 

So you have to find the right balance between the amount of suction that you have and the size of the hose. You also need to balance the amount of suction that you can maintain versus the amount of water that it can suck back up. It is more important to be able to remove dirt and moisture. This is the main problem that people run into when they use small home units, they put down more water then it can suck up. This dilutes the dirt and doesn’t remove it. This can also cause the carpet to smell because of the longer drying time. The goal should be to have the carpets dry the same day that it is cleaned

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Don’t leave chemicals in your carpets, the clear water rinse. 

If you are cleaning your carpets with chemicals in the water then you are going to leave chemicals in the carpet. Clean dirt and soap out of the carpet with soapy water means you leave soap in the carpet. Instead add the chemical to the prespray and only use fresh clean water to rinse with. This leaves the carpet cleaner. It also leaves the carpet residue free so that it does not attract new dirt to the carpet. You want the carpet not to hold the dirt but for the dirt to be able to be vacuumed off the carpet. 

Most carpet cleaners, be them small or large, use soap or chemicals in the water that you are cleaning with. Because of this you are always leaving chemicals in the carpet. We talked before about the cleaning process. Let us take a moment to review the best practice and why you should do it that way. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Best Practice Cleaning Procedure:

1. Remove what you can from the area. The more you can suck up dry the better. Maybe use a shop vac, or a vacuum to get the dry dust and dirt up. Or if there is something specific, like a pet accident or a kid dropped something on the carpet, quickly pick the containment up first.
2. Rinse out what you can. After you have removed the source now you can rinse out the remaining residue. If you are working on it as it happens then you normally can just rinse out the rest. Even paint in a paintbrush can be rinsed out if you do it right away. If you let it dry the manufacture will give it a 10 year warranty.
3. Break down what is left. This is the point where you have removed what will be removed. Now it’s time to break down what is sticking to the carpet. The idea here is to get the rest of the spot into solution so that you can rinse it out. Once it’s in solution it can be sucked back out of the carpet.
4. Clean water rinse. This is the final step to remove the remaining chemical and dirt from the carpet to clean the carpet chemical free.
5. If there is still a spot then go back to step 3.

Now that we have the method down, let us look at the why. In a perfect world everything is loose and can be picked up easily. A simple dry vacuuming is all that is needed to whisk away the dirt. And as long as you have loose dry dust you never need a carpet cleaner. When you need a carpet cleaner is when something gets on the carpet that can’t just be vacuumed off. Sugars are one thing that once they get on the carpet they must be rinsed out. They are sticky and won’t easily let loose of the carpet fiber. We have all had this happen before.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: 

You are in your kitchen enjoying a nice long glass of orange juice. It’s so refreshing that you lose yourself for a moment and you loosen your grip on the cup and it tips over and spills across the counter and on to the floor. You react quickly, more out of instinct than from normal slow thought, and grab a towel and wipe up the orange juice. The next day you walk into the kitchen only to discover a tacky, sticky feeling on your feet. It makes this flypaper like sticky sound as you walk on it. It’s the left over now dry orange juice on the kitchen floor that hadn’t been washed off the floor. You did wipe up the juice but had not rinsed the rest off the floor. 

This example is what happens to your carpet also. Now the left over sugars are attracting dirt making dark grey or brown spots. It’s not what was spilled on the carpet that is brown, but all the dust and dirt that is sticking to it. For example if I drop green gum on the sidewalk. I then come back a week later and find what colored gum? It would probably be black gum by that point. It’s not black gum, it has just caught all the dirt that passed by it. 

Another thing that will cause the carpet to attract dirt is something oily. The oil leaves a coating on the fiber and that will stick dirt and dust to it. This could be full on butter or something as simple as your pets. Pets are oily because they need to keep their coats nice and soft and shiny. Those same oils in their hair, the same that we have in our hair also, will build up over time in the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example:

When we go to sleep we often wash our hair before bed. Now if you didn’t wash your hair and had a white pillow case. What do you think that pillowcase would look like after a month of sleeping on it. I would venture to guess you would have a yellow halo around your head from where you hair was resting on the pillowcase. The same happens to your floors as your pets lay on them.

Also this happens to anywhere the pets hair travels to also. As they shed the excess hair gets on everything leaving a slight layer of oil. Over time that builds up and dust and dirt stick to it. That’s why where the pets like to lay down typically gets flatter and darker than the carpet around it. 

The next thing that can attract dirt to your carpet is chemicals. This is normally the cleaning chemicals. People will use them but now remove them. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa example:

You go to the store to pick up some spot shot. You come back and start to clean the spot. It looks like the spot is gone but a day or two later it’s back. It look more dusty grey now so you use some more spot shot to clean the spot.   Each time you clean it it seems to grow a little bit bigger. What is happening is you break down the spot but leave the chemical in the carpet. The dust and dirt is now sticking to the chemical or soap that was used to clean the spot. 

In that example there needed to be one more step, the rinse step. Otherwise you will come back to clean the spot again and each time it gets a little bit larger because each time you clean a slightly bigger area than the last. 

This is also one of the reasons that a spot will come back over time. You can help reduce or remove the likelihood that a spot will come back by always finishing with a rinse.

It’s unfortunate that this knowledge can be used against customers without them knowing. Over the twenty years of service the carpet cleaning industry I’ve run across guys who purposefully add extra soap to their cleaning water because it will cause the carpet to get grey faster. One guy told me, “I’ve got most of my customers cleaning their carpets now ever 3 months instead of 6 months by just adding more soap to the water so it looks grey quicker.”

Here at Complete Carpet we take a different approach to it. If we leave your carpets chemical free then there isn’t anything in the carpet to attract new dirt. So they next time we come to clean your carpets there won’t be as much dirt stuck everywhere in the carpet. It will stay clean longer making it easier to clean the next time. Also we would always pick lots of customers who use us on an as needed basis, then try to make a lot off of just a couple customers over and over. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Abracadabra, the spots that keep coming back… why are they doing that?

This is a tough one to break down in a way that will cover everyone. Let us start off with the negative side and then address the positive things. First off some spots can’t be completely removed. I know this is disheartening, but since carpet is a dye-able fabric some things can physically change the color of the carpet. It is not something on your white carpet. You now have blue carpet in that area. This is where having extra carpet from when it was installed comes in handy. Or a closet that you can pull some carpet from for an exact match.

Ok, now that we have tackled the permanent changes in carpet what about the non permanent ones that clean out and then seem to reappear? We will break down the different reasons that a spot can reappear in three main categories.

1. The First area is things that are still sticky. 

This piggy backs onto the last topic. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: If we spilled Sprite on the carpet and let it dry. It would be clear and you shouldn’t be able to tell where it spilled. Now give it a few days and let some people walk over it and you will quickly be able to see where the Sprite spilled. Every spot would turn a dark grey or brown as it pulled the dirt off of everyone’s shoes or feet as they walked on by. The sticky sugars in the Sprite would be a dust and dirt magnet. You could try to vacuum up the dirt but it would be stuck into the Sprite firmly.

If you pull out your carpet cleaner to clean up those spots you would probably be able to clean it first pass. This is because the dirt was sitting on the sugars. It is not ground into the carpet but sitting on the carpet. One pass over and the spots disappear. You would think problem solved, only to find out a week later that the spots had come back again. Well in this case the area is still sticky and is attracting new dust and dirt. You cleaned the dirt off of the spot without removing the spot that the dirt was sticking to. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Solution #1: Presoak, rinse, rinse, dry.

For this solution let us think about a cup with dried Coke on the bottom ring of the cup. You could take a sponge and try to scrub it out, but that would be a lot of elbow grease for very little results. BUT if you just added a little bit of hot water… and waited. Waited. Waited. Eventually you would see the Coke would dissolve all on its own. Once those sugars dissolve into the hot water the spot will go with them.

So we have two things going on here. First we must remove the dirt that is stuck to the sugars left in the carpet. Next we must remove the now exposed sugars from the carpet so that it is no longer sticky and attract dirt. 

Other things that can make the carpet sticky besides sugars are oils. Also glues can leave residue on the carpet that will trap new dirt and dust on the carpet fibers. Pets coats are always oily, and this is a good thing because if their coat doesn’t stay oily it will be rough and matted. We want them to have a nice healthy and shiny coat. But to have this nice shiny coat means anything that touches their coat gets oily. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example:

When you pet a dog, giving them a nice scratch, you will notice that your hand now smell like the pet. Or if you smell where the dog likes to sleep, you will find that it smells like the dog. This is from the oils that are on their coats rubbing off on what they come in contact with. 

Those oils slowly form a layer on the carpet fibers that will attract dust and dirt on the carpet fiber that will not just vacuum off. This is where you will need a good carpet cleaning to cut the oils and remove them off the carpet fibers. 

1. Next we have things that are in the carpet.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: Dust or dirt that has been walked into the backing of the carpet. 

This normally happens in areas where the carpet has been really neglected. Multiple years where someone doesn’t have a vacuum. Also a place that gets elevated foot traffic from outside. What happens is the dirt falls into the carpet. This dirt is in and on the carpet fibers just sitting there. Now people start walking across the carpet. As they walk across the carpet it bounces the carpet. This sifts the dirt through the carpet fibers and down to the backing.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Break Down:

What is the process that dirt takes on, into, and through your carpet? Here is a quick break down and why. 

1. Dirt enters your home. This can be from many sources but the most common culprits are the backyard, dirt and grass. Front yard, dirt, grass and road dust. Garage, Road dust, grease, oils and brake dust. 
2. The dirt and debris from inside your home. This would be from your inside dirt sources. Kitchen, normally food and drink spills. Pets, these lovable fur balls shed and slobber on everything. Kids, carry food and sticky things all around the home.
3. The dirt and debris gets wiped off on the carpet in the high traffic areas. This is the usual suspects. The first 5-10 feet of access onto the carpet. Coming in from the front door. Entering from the kitchen or garage area. The backdoor will build up dirt. And finally the areas that we sit; in front of a couch, next to a bed, in front of a rocking chair, around the dinner table, where ever the pets like to lay or sleep the most. 
4. Now that the dirt has gotten on to your carpet it can now spread. Every person that walks over the dirt and debris on the carpet will do two things. First they will shake and pound it into the carpet further. Next everyone that walks over the carpet will pick up the dirt that is sitting on the carpet and take it with them another couple of steps as they walk it farther into the home.
5. Dirt grinds into the backing of the carpet. Now that the dirt is in the carpet fibers each step on it will smash the carpet fibers. This will also slightly shake the carpet, the carpet moves under your foot. This shake sifts the dirt into the backing of the carpet. This is where you will get a layer of dirt at the base of the carpet fiber building up on the carpet backing.
6. Dirt sifts through the carpet into the padding below. Every single house will have very fine dirt and dust under the carpet and padding. This is dirt that has been finely ground through the above 5 steps and ends up a smooth powder that has sifted through the carpet fibers, the carpet backing and finally through the carpet padding to end up on the floor. 

Now that you know the path dirt takes through your carpet you can understand how some things might come back. A really well walked hallway gets a large glass of water spilled. That water spot turns a brown color as it dries. Why did my clear water dry light brown? The dirt that has been sifting through the carpet for years mixed with the water. Now the water is dirty water and it seeps up as it dries and brings the dirt with it.

Sometimes when the carpet gets cleaned it cleans the carpet fibers, but it can not clean the backing of the carpet. You don’t clean the backing of the carpe because it will water damage the carpet and take days to dry instead of hours. But the backing can be dirty and get the carpet fibers dirty again as people walk over the carpet and push the carpet fibers into the backing again. 

3. Finally things that are under the carpet that come back.

This group is things that have gone through the carpet or are coming from under the carpet. For this Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: Water damage from a slab leak. If a pipe breaks in the slab of your home the water will seep up from under the carpet and padding to float the dirt that is under the carpet and padding up into the carpet fibers. You come out and clean the carpet but there is still a leak under the carpet and padding. So the spot will continue to return as long as there is a leak. 

Another way this can happen is too much liquid. Let us imagine you just got a large route 44 soft drink. You are walking through the house and you step on little billy’s super lego collection that was left thoughtfully for you right in the middle of the hallway. A yelp of pain later and the whole 44 ounces are now laying on the carpet in a puddle. The carpet fibers can not hold that much liquid so it quickly drains through the carpet fibers and into the backing. The backing can’t hold that much liquid so it drains down into the padding below. 

You clean the carpet fibers of the liquid there and each time someone steps on that area it pushes it down into the soda pop filled padding below slowly wicking up some more sticky sugars. Those stick sugars coat the carpet fibers. This stickiness attracts new dust and dirt and the spot keeps coming back, because the source of the spot is under the carpet and not on the carpet. 

There are two solutions for all 3 of these problems. First if the spot comes back it maybe because the area was not cleaned good enough. If the dirt is cleaned off of the sticky spot it will look clean. But it is still sticky or oily and will attract dirt right back. This means a good prespray and slow cleaning should fix this problem. 

Second if the area is cleaned properly and the spot comes back this means the source is under the carpet. Remember the large route 44 drink spill or the slab leak? Every step over that carpet pushes it down into a source that keeps affecting the carpet. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example:  Think of an old style oil lamp. This kind of lamp has oil in a bottle and the top of the bottle has an opening. This opening has a wick that goes down into the oil and extends above the top of the bottle to draw up the oil to the bottle top. This same kind of wicking can happen with your carpets also. 

The solution to the second problem is twofold. First you can just wait it out. It’s not an endless supply so every time it is cleaned and walked on it will eventually wick up everything below it. So every carpet cleaning it will come back less until it is all gone. This process can take a long time, years even.  The second way to deal with it is to pull up the carpet and replace the padding. Once the source is gone the spot won’t keep coming back.

A common source of spots like this is where a pet has peed. A large dog can put down 20-40 ounces of liquid at one time. That liquid goes right through the carpet in the padding below. You clean the carpet fibers and the next step on it wicks up more pee from the large source below the carpet fibers. True the liquid will dry out over a week or two. But the stickiness will still be there and still works its way back up into the fiber over time. Every step over that area brings it back. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Reasons for carpet: What function does your carpet serve? How can it help your home? How can you use your carpet?

So many questions, what order should we address them in. We like to understand “the why” something is before we decide what we should do with the thing that we are using. So we will start with what function does carpet serve. This is a simple topic and a very deep one at the same time. Before we get into that, there is a great lesson to be learned that sometimes we make the wrong choices or decisions because we don’t understand how something works.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Story time:

I call this the Oreo cookie story. I’ve heard other variations of it but I like mine the best.  Perception will define our reality in ways that can change the course of our lives if we are not careful. They say that memories are 10% the facts of what actually happened and 90% how we felt at the time of the memory. Two people in the exact same situation and one walks away happy and the other sad. Two people watch the exact same movie and come away loving it or hating it. But the movie didn’t change for the two people, the difference was how they felt about the movie. 

Story time: A lady is at the airport. She is waiting for her flight to board. She has some time to burn so she heads over and picks out a magazine. While leafing through the selection there she spots a travel sized package of Oreos. This in turn sparked her sweet tooth, so it was going to be a cookie and a magazine. With her freshly purchased magazine and cookies in hand she went back to her gate to find a seat. She finds a prime seat with a perfect view of the gate so she would know when she was called and be able to get there quickly. 

While leafing through her magazine an older man comes over and sits in the seat on her right. There are other seats open, but he chooses to sit in the one right next to her. She tries to ignore him and enjoy her magazine. After a bit her sweet tooth reminds her that she has an unopened package of Oreos waiting to be opened and eaten. She reaches down and opened her 6 pack of Oreos and takes out one and eats it. A few minutes later she thinks she see the old man reach down and take one of her Oreos. Surely that old man didn’t have the audacity to steal one of her Oreos. 

She reaches down and takes out one Oreo and notices that there are only 4 left confirming her suspicion that one was missing. She continues to read while keeping one sideways eye watching the old man. This time without hiding it he reaches down and takes another Oreo! She is going to make a slightly veiled statement by reaching down and taking two Oreos this time leaving only one Oreo, almost daring him to try and steal her last Oreo. 

She keeps reading and gets lost in her magazine when she feels a tap on her shoulder. It was the old man next to her with the last Oreo in his hand extended toward her offering it to her. Oh she loses it, how could this guy take her very last Oreo and have the nerve to offer it to her. She is about to rip into him when she hears over the intercom her section called to board the plane. Without saying a word she back hands the Oreo out of his hand and walks away in a huff. 

As she walks to the boarding gate the lady there asks her very politely for her boarding pass. In all the excitement over the Oreo incident, which she was sure she would be telling this story for a long time, she had forgotten to get her boarding pass ready before she walked up to the gate. She apologized and opened her purse to find her boarding pass. Her face turns a very pale white as she looks through her purse. Right there in her purse was her boarding pass that she was looking for. Next to the boarding pass was her unopened travel sized 6 pack of Oreos. And then it dawned on her that the old man had been sharing his Oreos with her and had even gone so far as to offer his very last Oreo to her. 

There is a difference sometimes between what we think happened and what actually did factually  happen. We think that this can be avoided at times by knowing what is supposed to be happening and why so that you have the right palate to color the rest of the facts that you run into. 

Carpet, what does it do. So let’s brainstorm together and see what things we can credit to carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 1:  Sound deadening.

If you walk through a cinema and run your hands along the wall you will notice that they have carpet, even on the walls, to help keep everything more quiet. Or in a fine dining restaurant if you tough under the table or chairs they will have carpet under there to help deaden the sound. Music studios will be carpet and padding on the walls also to make for a soft sound. 

The opposite happens when you remove all the carpet from a home. It turns into a cathedral. The sound bounces all around the home. A small sound in one room will carry throughout the whole place. This is doubly effective when you have kids and they start arguing about who is touching who. The upside is that you have no doubt what your kids are doing or saying. It helps with the all knowing God side of being a parent where you ask them questions where they look at you with that surprise in their eye, how did you know that?

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 2: Dirt containment.

Dust everywhere, especially dust bunnies in the corners. If you have had only hard surfaces anywhere you will have had this experience. Carpet, compared to other flooring surfaces, is like a giant waste basket. All those fibers catch dust and debris and keep them from sliding around the floor. Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: Try going a week without sweeping your tile or wood floors. They will be crunchy, grainy, and visually dusty. Now if you don’t vacuum carpet for a week you will hardly notice. All that space between the carpet fibers are like little pockets to hold dust and debris. 

This also leads into the biggest draw back of carpet. Since you can quickly notice dust and dirt on hard surfaces, because it has no place to hide, you will respond to it in a more timely manner. Most people don’t go a couple of days without sweeping your hard surfaces. Some people even have a Romba or IRobot that goes around daily to sweep the floors. Whatever your response to the grit on the floor you notice it so you respond. This is true for all of our lives, whatever is most evident gets our attention first. As the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. 

Since carpet is great at holding dirt this leads to people not paying attention to the carpet for much too long. If it’s been a week since you vacuumed then you have a weeks worth of just normally household dust sitting in your carpets. Some people have forgotten their vacuuming all together and have gone weeks or months without giving their carpet attention. The carpet can take it a couple of times, but this leads to damage to the carpet that eventually is permanent. This can be avoided by just making sure that you vacuum the carpets at least once a week.

When you ignore your carpet maintenance you end up with a build up of dirt and debris in the carpet and in the backing. This becomes a breeding ground of allergens. This is why people believe that carpet is bad for your allergies. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Rebuttal: Carpet is neither good or bad for your allergies.

Wood floors, tile floors, carpeted floors, stained concrete, we are not allergic to any of these flooring surfaces. If I left my wood floors for months without sweeping them they would become like a barnyard floor. If I left my tile floors for months at a time without mopping them, they would be a major source of allergens. The same is true about your carpets. It’s not the flooring surface that is the problem, it’s the neglect of that area that becomes the problem. It’s everything else besides the carpet that you can become allergic too.

No matter what flooring surface that you choose, as long as you clean it every few days you won’t have any allergy problems from the flooring surface. The same is true in reverse. Any flooring surface that you neglect for a long time will become very dirty and a breeding ground for allergens. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 3: Non skid surfaces.

Another benefit of carpet is that, compared to other surfaces, anything that you put on carpet will stay in place. Carpet has better traction than other flooring surfaces. When you dog runs around the corner of your tile or wood flooring it can easily fall down if going to fast. Carpet on the other hand gives great traction. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example: Bathrooms.

I get asked all the time, why is there carpet in the bathroom? This ties into what we are talking about, because carpet in a bathroom makes for a better traction surface when you are wet. Think about it, if you have tile in the bathroom what do you put over it next to the toilet, front of the sink or as you step out of the shower? A bath mat, a small carpet rug to help you keep from slipping. As people get older they carpet the whole bathroom because one of the main areas for a slip and fall is in a wet bathroom.

This also helps when you have little ones or grandbabies. When they are learning to walk carpet is much easier and softer to help them to have traction and when they fall to cushion their fall. This leads into another benefit of carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 4:  Carpet is the only cushioned or padded surface.

This takes some stress off of your joints. If you walk on a hard surface all the time you will wear out your joints faster. There isn’t any give in wood, tile or concrete. But carpet softens the blow of each step that we take. We know about this in our exercise routines, we are looking for more low impact things to reduce the stress on our joints. This does have its limits, since too much padding wears on your joints also, it’s like walking in deep sand all the time.

Try dropping a cup or plate on anything but carpet and see if it survives the fall. That extra cushion is also responsible for the sound deadening properties of carpet also. It absorbs the sound that is in the room instead of giving it a hard surface to bounce back off of.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 5: Warmer flooring surface.

The slab of a home is in the ground. The ground temperature is normally 50-60 degrees. This turns into cold feet for hard surface. Carpet has a layer of padding under it that acts as an insulating layer over your subfloor so that your carpet stays at the temperature of your home and not of your subfloor. Besides if you want to lay on the floor and watch a movie you will definitely want carpet to pad and warm your floor. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 6: Easily repairable flooring surface.

When your dog digs a hole in your carpet you can quickly and easily patch that hole with some more carpet or into a closet. This is a 30 min fix normally. Wood floors need to be resanded and stained again. And tile floor needs to be leveled and grouted again. Also it’s much easier to replace a room of carpet compared to other flooring surfaces. For a few hundred dollars a small room can be completely changed in an hour. 

This is why so many older homes ended up with carpet over them. They had nice wood floors that got worn out. They looked into refinishing them and found out it would cost 2-3 times more than to just put carpet over them. So because of the budget needs people put carpet down as their upgrade or replacement. Also carpet is quick. You can install a whole home in a day with two guys. We need to move in right away, so carpet it is because we can move it tomorrow. Tile and wood typically take a week. And wood you have to be careful with until the finish is completely hardened. 

This also works for the other carpet in your home. We have lots of carpet that isn’t just wall to wall carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa “Other” Carpet Examples: 

1. Entry rugs, these are the waste baskets for dirt as you enter your home. 
2. Area rug in the dining room. This is the waste basket for food that falls from the table as we eat.
3. Area rug in front of the living room couch. The is for sound deadening as people sit and talk it doesn’t sound chaotic. Or if you are watching a movie the sound doesn’t get muddled and overwhelming. 
4. Bath Mats in the tiled areas. These have two functions, they are non slip and they absorb water so they tile isn’t a slip hazard. 
5. Runners down a hallway. These bits of carpet sit on top of another flooring surface, even carpet, and protect the surface below. They take the extra wear that a hallway gets compared to the rest of the home, so that when the runner is worn out you can quickly replace it and the floor below it is still in great shape.
6. Decoration! Some carpets serve the function of floor art. We have specialty rugs that have fancy designs in them to make the flooring beautiful. A huge turkish rug that has been hand woven. Or maybe something that ties in those bright blue window covers.

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Benefit 6: Quickly change up a room with a decorative rug.

This a a quick and cheap way to change up the look of a room. Take a huge rug that has a small city printed on it. Roads, houses, a train station and you now have a playroom. Make the rug look like an animal print and you have an office or den. Cover the rug in flower or vine prints and you have a sunroom. You can quickly change the entire feel of a room with one rug. I promise you that if you found a black rug with a large pentagram on it, people would think twice about walking over it. It would certainly change people’s perception of that room instantly.

You can use this to your benefit, quickly change the whole look or just try out a new look in a room without needing to make any big changes. In five minutes you unroll the new rug and the room is different. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa super tip:

If you have wood floors always get a mat pad for under your rugs. The rugs have a backing on them. Every time someone steps on that rug it shifts slightly. Over time those small shifts will act like sandpaper and rub the finish off the flooring below. Also the rug pad helps to reduce the crawl that a rug sometimes does each time it’s walked on. Eventually moving from where you placed it.

Take an ordinary bedroom and place a large fluffy pink rug in the middle of it and you will instantly have a girls bedroom. Take a room and place a large rug with Captain America’s shield on it and you will have a little boys room. Rugs are great ways to quickly change up the feel of any room. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Topic: Types of Carpet: Residential, Commercial, Indoor and Outdoor. 

This section we will cover the different types of carpet that you can buy. We will start from the outside in. Your outdoor carpets are typically more dense. They are more hardy so that they can weather the elements without breaking down as fast. The first example of these are outdoor entry mats. These can be decorative and are normally very flat and hard. It’s a mat that can get wet and won’t break down. This could also be carpet that is glued to the floor on the back porch. You also use different glue when you are gluing carpet to the floor outside. Normal inside glue will break down if it gets soaked in water. 

On the commercial side you will have very dense carpets for outside. Astro turf to make an area look like grass. Black solid mats to knock the dirt off of people’s feet as they enter a business. A green putting like surface on a putt-putt golf course. If outdoor carpet is not cleaned on a regular basis it can start to build up dirt, debris and even start to mold. Remember that outside carpet collects more often and will need to be cleaned more regularly than inside carpet.

Inside commercial carpet is more dense than residential carpet. It also has a shorter fiber. This is to combat the additional wear that commercial carpet will get. The carpet will not feel as soft and nice as residential carpet does, but that trade off is the durability of the carpet. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Example:

Hudini used to take a large wooden board that was full of nails. He would have someone place a brick on the board and place the board, brick and nails on his chest. On someone would break the brick with a hammer. How could he break the brick on the board full of nails that was on his chest without hurting himself? The board had lots of nails, not just one nail. One nail will put all the pressure on one spot, but a thousand nails divide that pressure over a thousand spots.

Back to our commercial carpet. This is what commercial carpet does also. By having lots of short fibers tightly packed against each other they all divide the weight of the people that walk over them between all the fibers. This in turn allows the carpet to last a lot longer even with all the extra traffic. The trade off is that the carpet doesn’t feel soft and lush as residential carpet does. But what you get for the stiffer carpet is something that can last a long time and not need to be replaced every year. 

If you never walk on carpet you never need to get it cleaned. With that in mind the more that you walk on your carpe the more often you need to get the carpet cleaned. A home can go six months to two years between carpet cleanings. A busy restaurant can only go two to six months between carpet cleanings. 

Finally we have residential carpet. This is carpet that has cost and comfort in mind. Builder’s grade carpet, what most people get, give the best comfort for the lowest price. The trade off is that the carpet will have longer fibers, to make it feel softer, but will have a lot less fibers per inch to keep the cost down. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip:

Remember that when you buy carpet you are buying the carpet fibers. This might seem simple but it changes a lot. If you want to spend $10 a yard on carpet with a two inch long fiber there will be a lot of space between the fibers to keep the cost at $10. Now if you bought the same $10 carpet but you got the carpet fiber only half of an inch long, now you would have fibers that were four times closer together. Why? Because it’s the same amount of fiber, weight wise for the cost. If the fiber is two inches long it’s in one spot. If the fiber was half an inch long, that same original two inch fiber would make four new half inch fibers in the exact same space for the same cost. You would give up fluffy softness for tighter durability at the same price. 

You see this in frieze carpet. Because it is a heavily twisted fiber to give it that wrinkled appearance the fibers have to be longer for the twists. But people still want to pay the same amount as the shorter cut pile carpets, so there are big spaces between the fibers of frieze carpet. Because of this all builder’s grade frieze carpets about one year in look very flat. The twist in the fiber has gone out, just like a perm in your hair drops out over time, and the fibers are now filling the spaces between themselves. 

Now that the fibers are straight and flat people start to dislike the look of their once curly carpet. While we are at it lets cover quickly the different kinds of carpet and the pro’s and con’s of each. 

1. Frieze carpet, when bought at the same price of other carpets looks flat really soon. This is because it takes more carpet to give it that twisted look so the fibers are farther apart and they eventually fill in the gaps. Expect to spend about twice as much to get longer lasting durable frieze carpet if you want it to last.
2. Cut pile carpet. This is the bulk of carpet. It is one set height so all the fibers take the wear equally. This in turn gives it good wear over time. As with all carpet the lower the fiber weight of the carpet the less fibers there are to take the wear. The higher the fiber weight of the carpet the more fibers there are to take the wear. 
3. Berber carpet. These are your loop carpets. They really last a long time because of the loops don’t look much different flat then they do round. Also they support each other since they are all one long fiber. The downside is that they are all one fiber, so if one breaks free and gets pulled it will pull all the others and you get a run.  Also berber is not soft normally, it’s very rough on your knees to crawl on, unless you spend a lot of money on really high end berber. 
4. Commercial level loop. This is a really small tight berber carpet for huge durability in a commercial space. It’s not comfortable, but it will last a long time.
5. Sculptured carpet. This is a hybrid between level loop carpet and cut pile carpet. Normally it’s got a slight pattern to it. This gives some softness like cut pile does with the extra durability of loop carpet.
6. Patterned carpet. This is normally loop carpet, but can be cut pile also. This can look amazing in a room with a design that gives it a high end elegance. The downside is that you have to have a very good installer because if the pattern is off at all it makes the whole room look crooked. Also when patterned carpet gets loose it’s rare that it can be stretched without throwing off the pattern. 
7. Carpet squares. This is used more in commercial spaces, like churches, retail spaces and gathering spaces. These are typically two foot by two foot squares of carpet that are lightly glued to the floor next to each other. This allows you to replace carpet squares as they are damaged instead of all the carpet when it gets worn. These almost always have some type of pattern to them to give a nice look to the area. 

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Pro Tip:

We get asked a lot what carpet do we recommend. There is no good answer to that. Every person likes something a bit different. So let’s think of why you would buy the carpet. I think if you think through why you want the carpet in the first place that will help you figure out what carpet you need. Here is our list:

Carpet Cleaning Tulsa Carpet List:

1. Will you be on the floor? If so then touch the carpet with your hands and your face so you will know how soft it is. My face? Yes it sounds silly but, if you are going to lay on the carpet, this is the best way to find something you think feels great. 
2. Will pets be on the carpet? There are certain carpets that are better for pets. Pets have oily coats and also will have accidents. Make sure your carpet is made with that in mind. 
3. Is this a gathering space? What is the traffic going to be like in this area? If a lot of people will be on or across the carpet every day then you want to look for durability in your carpet. Short dense pile carpet or maybe a berber carpet. 
4. Is this space decorative? Some rooms are for show and not use. Here you would want to pick a carpet that matches a specific design or color scheme. Like an office or sun-room.
5. Is this going to be small kids in the room? Smaller kids are more prone to sticky, messy, painty, etc. Some carpets have kids in mind. Better stain resistance, extra wear, or softer depending on your desires. 
6. Is this a commercial space or a workout space? You will want a level loop carpet that is glued down or has a glue down padding option.

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