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Why We’re the Best
Our Process
• Inspection and Consultation – Whether it’s at an estimate or at the job
site before we get started, one of us will walk through the areas to be cleaned
with you and thoroughly inspect the carpet for areas of concern. This could
include stains, extremely worn traffic areas, or damage, among other things. We
also take a loose fiber from around a baseboard and burn it. We can tell by the
smell and color of the flame and smoke what kind of carpet you have. This step
is very important because different carpet materials require different chemicals
and water temperatures to clean properly. The reason we do this is two-fold.
First, we like to let you know what to expect before and after the cleaning.
Second, it’s a way to cover our own steps so that we, as the cleaners, know what
to expect.
It’s also somewhat of a waiver. You know that we know that you know what exactly
can and might happen. Nobody likes to get sued! =)
• Setup and Protection – We have homes, just like you, and we understand
that you would like to keep your homes nice. Because we move hoses and other
equipment through your home, we protect it from scratches by putting tarps on
your hardwood and guards on your corners and door frames.
• Pretreatment – We use a top-of-the-line live enzyme chemical with a
citrus booster as a pre-treatment. It is applied and agitated before the
cleaning and left to dwell at least 15 minutes. This gives enough time for the
enzymes to break down protein based soils (food, pet deposits, etc.) and for the
citrus booster to break down oil based stains. After breaking the soils down,
the chemical suspends them on top, just waiting to get rinsed out.
• Steam Cleaning – After the pre-spray has had time to work, we rinse
with the steam cleaning method. We use a mild emulsifying rinsing agent that
bonds with the pre-spray (and, consequently, the soil it is suspending) at the
point of contact with the wand and carpet and is easily sucked into the machine.
By this point the carpet is officially cleaned, but the process is only about
half over.
• “Souring” – The chemicals we use generally fall onto the alkaline side
of the pH scale. Now without getting too scientific, and making a long story
short: leaving carpets wet and not pH neutrally balanced can make them turn
brown. To remedy this, we apply a chemical on the Acid side of the pH scale to
the carpet. This cancels out the alkaline and brings it to a neutral. Neutral
carpets dry faster and softer as well.
• Protecting Your Carpets – This is the part of the process that makes us
unique among other carpet cleaners. We INCLUDE Teflon protectant to every part
of the carpet we clean, whereas most other companies charge upwards of an
additional 20 cents PER SQUARE FOOT!!! Your carpet actually takes quite a
beating when it gets cleaned. Carpet manufacturers put “Acid Dye Resisters” in
their carpets to help resist common stains. When your carpet is cleaned, some of
these chemicals are stripped and the fiber is left much more susceptible to
accepting other types of dye from food and other things. We believe that a
cleaning would not be complete without applying protectant, which, in addition
to coating to fibers with flourochemicals (Teflon), replaces the acid dye
resisters.
• Drying – Nobody wants wet carpets for long. That’s why we leave high
powered fans on it for optimal drying time. In many circumstances, we will
actually leave a fan with you to help in the drying process. There are several
obvious reasons why we do this. The faster carpets dry, the faster you can walk
on them, the faster you can replace furniture, and the faster you can get back
to life in general. It also helps prevent old stains from coming back (wicking).
You can generally expect your carpets to be dry in about 2-6 hours, depending on
cross drafts and outside weather.
Take the Common Sense challenge!!!
Call any other carpet cleaning company and find out if they are as thorough as
we are. We would wager a bottle of our home spotter that every other company
around is lacking in AT LEAST three steps of the process. The most pathetic part
of that is the fact that this exact method of carpet cleaning is recommended by
the IICRC, which is the standard by which any reputable company should go by.
We use only the steam method to clean your carpets. This method is
preferred by most manufacturers and in many cases is required by manufacturers
to retain the warranties of their carpets. There is a specific process to this,
and to deviate from the process is to give you an incomplete cleaning. Our
process is a delicate balance of:
• Chemistry – all of our chemicals are built to work together to optimize
the cleaning process
• Heat – the water that comes out of the wand at the point of contact
with the carpet is at least 180 degrees. This kills bacteria and other microbes
that reside in your carpet. Chemical reactivity is also multiplied exponentially
for every ten degrees over 150. But be careful! Some companies brag that their
water is “230 degrees or more”. Water at this temperature can actually damage
some carpets.
• Agitation – We help with chemical reactivity by agitating (brushing)
all areas of carpet that have been pretreated. This helps to loosen soils and
stains and bring them to the surface (emulsification).
• Time – Perhaps the most important of the four. Emulsifying chemicals
always need time to dwell and break down the soils and stains, sometimes as long
as 30 minutes! If chemicals are not allowed to do their work, then we don’t look
very good at the end of the day! Also, professional carpet cleaning is a process
- a process that a lot of other companies have gotten away from or don’t care
about because they just want to save a few extra minutes. With us you can rest
assured that we will ALWAYS stay as long as it needs to take to do the job as
good as we possibly can. |
