By While you are spoilt for choices when selecting carpet cleaning company for your home or business, it is important to understand the different types of carpet cleaning methods used by different companies as not all carpet cleaning methods work for your carpet.
Here are the types of carpet cleaning in the market:
Hot Water Extraction Cleaning
Commonly known as steam carpet cleaning, hot water extraction cleaning use high pressured hot water to agitate the carpet fibre and dissolve dirt in the carpet.
Hot water extraction cleaning typically involves application of cleaning agent on soiled surface, agitation of carpet with brush and followed by rinsing. After cleaning agent settle in the carpet for a short duration, the carpet will be “washed” by a carpet cleaning equipment to rinse the cleaning agent thoroughly and finally left to dry in room or air conditioned temperature
An average sized carpeted office of 3000 sq ft would normally take about 2 hours to clean and will take at least 4 hours to dry. Most cleaning companies would advise carpet to be cleaned in the late afternoon so that after cleaning is done, the carpet can be left to dry over night and office operation can resume back to normal the next morning.
Carpet Shampooing
Shampoo carpet cleaning was popular till encapsulation technology was introduced in 1970s. While shampooing of carpet may seem to clean heavily soiled carpet, the technology’s disadvantage – leaving behind high amount of wet foam residues in the carpet that takes a long time to dry, becomes sticky when it dries because no rinsing is done after shampooing and rapid re-soiling of carpet – makes this cleaning method less popular than others.
Encapsulation
Foam encapsulation use synthetic detergents as a base that will crystallize into powder form when dries. Loosened dirt particles in carpet fibre will be encapsulated into powder when the applied cleaning foam dries and, finally, vacuumed or brushed when the foam dries after cleaning.
The foam encapsulation cleaning technique has overtaken carpet shampooing technology as the former uses less water during cleaning which result in shorter drying time compared to the carpet shampooing. The foam encapsulation cleaning has received thumbs up by those who advocate using of environmental friendly products because there is less chemical residue left behind after cleaning compared to carpet shampooing.
Although encapsulation carpet cleaning has shown good cleaning results, this cleaning method has not been able to thoroughly clean heavy soiling carpet because of the technology’s limitation.
Bonnet Cleaning
This carpet cleaning produce good surface cleaning result as the process mainly involve cleaning the top part of the carpet fibre using a heavy duty motorised machine with a spinning pad that has been immersed with cleaning solution to absorb dirt from the carpet surface.
Bonneting is popular in hotels because it can give a quick fix solution to clean carpet in heavy traffic public area that require carpet to be cleaned without much moisture and can dry quickly to prevent causing inconvenience to hotel guests.
Because bonneting does not clean carpet deeply, dirt beneath the carpet would emerge back to the surface within short period of time, causing carpet to get soiled again quickly. Bonneting also tends to cause accumulation of chemical residue in the carpet as pressure from the heavy machine on the spinning pad push the applied chemical and remaining dirt into the carpet.
Dry Carpet Cleaning
Dry carpet cleaning or compound cleaning is one of the latest cleaning technology found in the market and has gained increasing popularity and approvals by leading carpet manufacturers because of its effective cleaning performance and convenience as it does not require drying time.
Since dry carpet cleaning technology was invented in 1980s, there are many types of cleaning compound or powders that have been developed in the market. As this cleaning technology is considered relatively new compared to other conventional wet carpet cleaning methods that have been trusted and used for decades, many still doubt the effectiveness of this cleaning technology.
The highlight of dry carpet cleaning is the application of cleaning compound or powder into the bottom part of carpet using a motorized counter rotating brush machine to open up the carpet fibre and allow the compound to settle inside, resulting in thorough deep carpet cleaning result.
Cleaning compound is typically made of biodegradable material that works like micro-sponges, which can effectively absorb dissolved dirt in the carpet and can be removed thoroughly at the end of the cleaning process.
Different dry carpet cleaning equipment manufacturers differentiate themselves by developing their own cleaning compound or powders formula and customizing their equipment design and function.
Dry carpet cleaning is safe for all types of carpet and recommended for commercial offices that need to operate 24 hours, 7 days a week, as operation in the office need not be disrupted during the carpet cleaning process.
