The most overlooked part of carpet cleaning is called preventative cleaning.

What this revolves around is the ability of the home or facility to keep the soil outside the building or at least at the entry doorways.

If the soil gets past the front doors then it becomes difficult to keep the place clean. In the winter this may often revolve around the dreaded slush or even worse yet -salt!  on the carpets.

It is extremely difficult to remove salt with any true green method of carpet cleaning method except for rinsing with straight water. This method can take dozens of attempts and still may not be successful.

Here are a handful of steps that are vital in maintaining a good appearance to your carpets at the buildings entryways during the winter:

Step 1- keep the salt swept away from the doorways when there is no ice or snow.

Step 2- keep sand, soil and settlement off of tires in parking areas swept up daily.

Step 3- have large capture mats at all entries.

Step 4- keep these capture mats clean. If they get slushy vacuum up the slush immediately with a wet-dry vacuum. If its a bad winter you may have to do this several times a day.

Step 5- clean visibly soiled area frequently. This may mean that the carpet has to be cleaned daily at high traffic entrances.

Step 6- vacuum carpets in all directions. The dry particulate matter comes out much easier when its dry. Vacuuming in strokes north-south, east-west, south-north and then west to east will make a huge difference in the amount of soil removed from the carpet.

Step 7- speed dry carpet matting. A huge percentage of installed carpet matting is made of olefin. This olefin fiber wicks soils quickly. Speed drying will allow for salty moisture to dry and be either vacuumed out or padded out with an acid rinse.

A thoroughly thought out carpet maintenance plan requires constant inspection. This may require looking at the carpet before and after the cleaning. You may need to vary the amounts of water employed and the chemistries used in cleaning. Never forget that salty slush is much easier to remove with a wet/dry vac than after it has hardened.

For a free assessment of carpet cleaning issues at your facility email info@torontocarpetinspector.com

As many of you know I inspect carpets for the major carpet mills. This week I had the opportunity to inspect for a woman north of Toronto for a carpet that was wearing out. She said that her home inspector had told her that she didn’t need to have the carpet cleaned by a professional. As a matter of fact the carpet did not have to be cleaned at all he said. Well needless to say the carpet was a wreck. The reasoning for not cleaning the carpet was that they were all located in bedrooms and that no one wears shoes in the bedrooms.

Well let me start off by saying –if you only have bare feet on a carpet then is the carpet not doing the same things as your socks would?? Don’t you change your socks on a daily basis?? Why? Because they stink from the oil and perspiration off your feet thats why. The oil off of feet can be murder to some carpets. Look along side your bed, can you tell the spot your feet land on the carpet every morning? Most people can!

Secondly–the soil in a carpet is extremely small. Its much smaller than the human eye can see. The soil is also usually very gritty and abrasive. In other words when you walk on a carpet loaded with soil you are creating an abrasive sand paper effect to the carpet.

Thirdly-the carpet manufacturers have spent millions of dollars to create carpet fiber that hides dirt. Yes it hides dirt. Whether  the Antron fiber or trilobal fiber or foxface fiber, carpet fiber does a wonderful job of hiding the soil inside of it.

I always laugh at people’s reaction to my next statement because almost every body does it and it makes a good point. Why is it that people will look at a carpet adjacent to a ceramic tile and say “I had better clean the tile it hasn’t been cleaned in a week but I can wait till next year to clean the carpet.” Geez the ceramic tile can live through the next world war but the carpet is a textile floor covering.

Most carpet manufacturers recommend cleaning the carpet before it becomes visibly soiled and at least every 12-18 months. The preferred method for cleaning is hot water extraction. It is suggested that the carpet cleaner hold an IICRC certified carpet cleaning technician and uses CRI approved chemicals. I’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions email me at leesenter@hotmail.com.

For the first time in years I had one of my carpet cleaners get angry at the salespeople for specifying steam cleaning a filthy carpet in August.

I have always said to my people that the cleaners will never understand the phone/salespeople and vice versa. Its management’s reponsibility to be able to bridge those gaps and these gaps can be wide.

Anyways the cleaner felt that a low moisture dry crystalline shampoo was the way to go on this commercial job. In many cases I would agree and actually specify this method of cleaning. We can still use safe green chemistries—and we use less water which is part of the green movement. Its a win-win situation and the net result often looks better in humidex weather in August.

This got me thinking about low moisture cleaning or “dry” cleaning of residential carpets in Toronto. I truly have a hard time pushing these methods in our city unless I was the person doing the carpet cleaning myself. What is the reason? It has nothing to do with the chemistries. It has nothing to do with the machines. It has to do with potential damage to the carpet fibers.

I was talking with Aaron Kashn of eFloors the other day over a glass of wine. Aaron sells very high end carpet from all over the world and the usual stuff from Dalton as well. This conversation made me think about the fact that most carpet sold out of Dalton these days is stuff with no texture retention warranty.

Back in the day of my daily carpet cleaning route 15-30 years ago it was rare to see carpet that would have its tufts bloom from a vacuum , traffic or cleaning. We had a name for that junk it was “builder’s grade”. In this day and age I am forever seeing carpet that could not stand up to an aggressive scrubbing from a rotary or dual rotating brush. No really–the junk doesn’t stand up and the “good stuff” can be ruined by improper deployment of spinning brushes or bonnets. Thats why we are careful where we specify low moisture residential carpet cleaning.

It also made me want to point out to consumers that its important to know what kind of warranty your carpet has when you buy it. Don’t be fooled by the famous “wear warranty”. A claim under a wear warranties is almost never honoured. Reason-carpets don’t wear out! Carpets ugly out!  The warranty a good carpet needs is a texture retention warranty or a textureguard warranty. I will talk about that more next week.

I had a couple of calls and an email last week  about my posts on this blog and my other one at www.TorontoCarpetInspector.com. I was thrilled that I could help people out who were looking to make informed decisions on what to do with their carpet or in one guy’s case how to get it properly installed in this city with the use of a powerstretcher.

If you have any questions or comments email me at leesenter@hotmail.com

Cleaning carpets in August in the Greater Toronto Area is probably not the best time. The humidity in the region just does not allow quick drying of carpets.

There are several ways to get around slow drying times.

1) Ask the cleaners to use air movers while they clean

2) Leave the air conditioners on in the home before, during and after the cleaning

3) Have the carpets cleaned by truckpowered units if practical

4) Have the cleaners double extract

5) Employ minimum moisture cleaning methods

Why are quick drying times important?

1) They minimize the odours associated with carpet cleaning

2) Wick back of stains will be minimized

3) Carpets can be walked on quicker-eliminating the need to walk on a damp carpet and the subsequent soil tracking

4) Reduces the chances of microbial growth in the carpet

I would avoid deep cleaning carpets in August in larger facilities unless the air handling unit can support good air exchanges.

Till next time

Lee Senter

I was shocked to see the the introduction to the article I have attached. As you will see though all ends well!

http://earth911.com/news/2011/06/24/eco-friendly-carpet-cleaning/

Well as reluctant as I was to try new products we have tried the Rochester Midland carpet cleaning product from the Envirochem line and I have to say the results have been pretty impressive so far. We were given a case of the product to try and we used it.

For these carpets that have just not been cleaned enough and are filthy, to the basements that are damp, to the banquet hall that  cleaned their own carpets with ancient equipment, to the carpet that has been well lived on by dogs this prodcut has rocked.

Now is it green?? Well to be frank it has not any little labels on the side of the bottle saying it has been independently certified as non-toxic. It does however have no hazardous ingredients according the controlled products regulation nor the ingredient disclosure list. This I have to say is better than many of the so called “verified green products”.

So now we can clean green in the hot, humidex days and not get the residual odours that are associated with carpet cleaning in the high humidity.

Another neat piece in the green cleaning arsenal of Fresh and Clean Carpet Cleaning www.freshandclean.ca.

If you have any questions regarding green cleaning or carpets in general please feel free to email me at info@torontocarpetinspector.com

Its funny how green cleaning carpets is always viewed more by the chemistry than the process.

There is a carpet cleaning process that has been around for a long time but is rarely seen in Toronto carpet cleaning. Its called HOST. What HOST is is true dry cleaning of carpets. It is also considered quite green by all parties. The process revolves around the use of  ground up saturated corn and is agitated into the carpet with a counter rotating brush machine and then vacuumed up.

This process is not unique in Toronto dry carpet cleaning community but we are one of the few who do perform the service.

If you have woven carpets with a natural backing system on your broadloom this is the way to go! If you are unsure of the kind of carpet you have then feel free to email me and I will be happy to come out and give you a free assessment and quotation for your carpet cleaning.

Many woven carpets will shrink severely if it receives too much water or remains damp too long.

Carpets or rugs manufactured with natural cellulosic fibers like true sisal carpets/rugs, linen or art silk rugs can only be safely cleaned with a dry powder cleaning method like HOST.

Anyways, yes our company Fresh and Clean does do green dry cleaning in the Toronto area. See our website at www.freshandclean.ca or feel free to email me at lee.senter@freshandclean.ca.

Here is the blurb HOST put on our Facebook page :

HOST is the environmentally preferred carpet cleaning system that deep cleans your carpet and reduces dust mites and mold leaving it fresh, clean, dry and ready to use. Made from 100% plant-based resources and a little bit of water, HOST is the easy, effective, safe and green carpet cleaner.

I happen to think in many cases HOST is the only answer to some cleaning situations.

Have you seen my other blog at www.TorontoCarpetInspector.com?

My friend in the States has done the research , here is his response on deodorizers requiring a fragrance-”Lee, I dug a bit deeper into this topic and learned that only the state of
California has made this proclamation, that is prohibiting a deodorization claim in biocides that do not contain fragrances. Some biocide registrants have decided to adopt one master label US-wide, thus potentially limiting their ability to promote a deodorization claim. The active biocide in Polysphere retains its deodorization claim in 49 of 50 states…California
excluded.
So is this a turn for the future?? I hope not because I believe fragrances are tough on chemically sensitive people.

Its funny the ideas that come with green. The people on the leading edge often want to  associate green cleaning as meaning chemically sensitive people “should” be able to use the product or process. We at Fresh and Clean have had that as an option all along for our clients.

One of the big items we always liked to push was the availability of green carpet protectors and fragrance free deodorizers. But that may have to change.

I was told this week when I was attanding the CSSA show at the International Centre in Mississauga that the American government are insisting that all deodorizers have a fragrance. Now the logic behind this evidently has something to do with controversy behind sanitization claims made by products and differentiating between these products that sanitize and deodorize.  The preliminary principals of deodorization are pretty straight forward: 1) remove the source 2) destroy or mask the offending odour.

There are several deodorizers that destroy odours through processes of oxidization. The product we use which does this and uses no fragrances may soon be unavailable to us. I will be doing my homework and keep you up to date. In the meantime we still have deodorizers that work and leave no residual fragrance.

If you have any odour issues that you are having difficulty resolving then feel free to email me at leesenter@hotmail.com or call 1-877-GREEN57

I haven’t been around for a while and I apologize.

I have been looking through my competitors websites to see what everyone else is doing and what they are saying. I googled green carpet cleaning and found so many people claiming to be green in their tags but offering nothing to the customer.

To me green means using a process that is the safest known to the industry-using the products that are known not to damage fibers and to not leave residues.

We at Fresh and Clean use food based cleaners first-and these products are certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Seal of Approval Program (CRISOA). If we need to add a little kick to the process we have a botanically based preconditioner that also has the CRISOA. These products are so safe I am willing to drink them to prove a point.

This next point is important but not green related-if you have recently purchased a carpet you may not know that your warranty can be voided by not using products that have achieved the CRISOA.

I see people out there trying to convince the public that enzymes are green and not even a chemical and that encapsulation is green. Well I’ll use this subject matter for posts in the coming weeks.

I just want to say that we use a process for our cleaning that has achieved the Greenguard certification which is about as tough as it gets. If you have any questions or problems or concerns you want addressed or help with please do not hesitate to email me at info@torontocarpetinspector.com