Carpet Cleaning Equipment & Machines

The type of machine that is being used for carpet cleaning as well as the solution that is being used can make a large difference in how well the carpet is cleaned, how fast it dries, and whether there is any damage that is done to the carpet.  Obviously, it is desirable to avoid this, and sometimes people will choose to have a professional clean their carpet because of this concern.  However, for those that decide to do it themselves there are some important things that they need to know.  There are both wet and dry carpet cleaners.  The wet carpet cleaners are often not recommended, however, because the shampoo that they use cannot be completely rinsed from the carpet.  When this takes place it is much like shampooing one’s hair and not rinsing all of it out.  It leaves behind a residue that can make the carpet stiff and sticky, and this residue is also a magnet for dirt, grime, and debris, making the carpet get dirty again much faster than it otherwise would have.  Most consumers do not realize this, however, and they do not understand why they cannot keep their carpet clean. 

While some individuals are still insistent on using the wet carpet cleaning equipment, more and more consumers are now moving over to using dry carpet cleaning equipment and methods.  The dry method of carpet cleaning had its skeptics when it first came out but now it is much more accepted and many individuals will now not use any other method.  The dry carpet cleaning method uses similar equipment to the wet method with one important difference – tiny, sponge-like particles are used and they contain trace amounts of both cleaning agents and water, but not nearly enough to actually wet the carpet.  This method is preferred by individuals that do not have much time to allow their carpet to dry and also by businesses that do not want to worry about keeping customers off of certain pieces of carpet or out of certain areas.  With dry carpet cleaning equipment the carpet never gets wet, so there is absolutely no downtime while waiting for it to dry.  It is easy to see that there are serious advantages to this type of carpet cleaning equipment and method. 

For individuals that do not want to soak their carpet with shampoo that will be difficult to remove but yet do not feel comfortable with the dry methods of carpet cleaning, there is steam cleaning, which falls somewhere in the middle of the scale between the wet cleaning and the dry cleaning.  Steam cleaning uses water, but the water goes from one tank, is sprayed into the carpet, and then is immediately vacuumed up into another tank in the carpet cleaning equipment and is not actually soaked into the carpet and left there for any length of time.  This keeps shampoo residue out of the carpet and also ensures that the carpet gets wet enough to get clean.  While this is not technically true ‘steam cleaning’ it is what carpet cleaning professionals consider to be steam cleaning.  It is also the method that most professional carpet cleaners and most carpet manufacturers recommend as being the best for the carpet.