Carpet Cleaning

[VanDiesel99]

Anyone who is familiar with carpet cleaning:

What all equipment is required to clean carpets and apply stain protectant?

[RyanH]

The typical components of a carpet cleaner are:

Solution tank: to hold your water and soap solution

Pump / delivery system: you will need a pump and hose to pump the solution from your tank to your cleaning hand tool

Vacuum system: EXTREMELY important as you will need to remove as much of the water from the carpet as possible

Recover tank: to hold the recovered water and soap (which typically resembles chocolate milk or coffee)

Stain protectant can be applied with a pump up garden sprayer.

Hand tool: there are a variety of these things ranging from cheap to expensive, and tiresome to effortless (with respect to price). Usually it consists of a metal tube about 4' in length. A vacuum hose and pressure hose are attached. The pressure hose is used to deliver the solution, the vacuum hose is used to remove. A nozzled head (triangular in shape) is at the opposite end, in contact with the carpet. For the cheaper units, physical agitation by hand is used. This is very exhausting and can result in inconsistent cleaning patterns over large areas of carpet, but is the most common and cheapest.

Other tools resemble a vacuum cleaner in the sense that they have independently powered beater bars to agitate the carpet and make cleaning easier on your arms.
Also, a VERY cool tool (costing between $2000 and $3000) consists of a spinner and multiple water emitting orifices with simultaneous vacuum ports. The object of this is to clean the carpet from all angles, not just a one-dimensional stroke.

Portable carpet units range in cost from $1500 up to around $6000, the factors involved being whether or not the unit can heat the water internally, how much solution it holds, attachments it comes with, and quality of construction. Truck-mounted units can range from $7000 up to over $20000 and have the same components as the portable units, just scaled up and more powerful. Some models use small 4-cylinder car engines (Nissan is a popular one) to power the vacuum pumps. The pressure on some can reach over 3000 psi, so some people use their setup for pressure washing as well (you would never use this for carpet, but you never know when you will need to push water up high and need the power). The units also have the ability to heat the water (absolutely essential for successful cleaning).

http://www.jondon.com/
http://www.longbeachvacuum.com/steam_extractors.htm

You can go to either of these sites to learn about the different styles. Jon-Don has some fantastic products and the people there are very helpful on what kind of chemicals you need.
Also, you can google
"truck mounted" AND "carpet extractors"
and get some excellent information. I use an Edic Stealth for one of my jobs...it works really well as a portable unit, but the drawback is I have to heat the water externally (I have on-site access to a stove, so this isn't a problem).

Hope this gives you a head start. Good luck!

Ryan H.

[RyanH]

Rotary cleaner
http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/pr...ducts_id=18592

Hand tools
http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/de...?cPath=67_2031

Carpet cleaning chemicals
http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/de...?cPath=67_2029

I remember when I was doing some research on the truck mounted units awhile back many people said that the Avenger 450 was a good starting unit. Provided most of the needs any carpet cleaner will ever need.
Some more links I had stored:
http://www.century400.com
http://groups.msn.com/Steambrite/avenger450.msnw
http://www.prochem.com

[One Tough Pressure]

Originally Posted by RyanH

Recover tank: to hold the recovered water and soap (which typically resembles chocolate milk or coffee)

Wow, sure sounds clean, mine always looks like mud.

Originally Posted by RyanH

For the cheaper units, physical agitation by hand is used. This is very exhausting and can result in inconsistent cleaning patterns over large areas of carpet, but is the most common and cheapest.

Even the expensive truck mounts use the "scrub wand", as it is the cheapest to buy, and easiest to train someone on. In reality, the chemicals are supposed to do the work and you are just rinsing. I like the "Drag Wand" the best as it really sucks the water out.

Originally Posted by RyanH

Also, a VERY cool tool (costing between $2000 and $3000) consists of a spinner and multiple water emitting orifices with simultaneous vacuum ports. The object of this is to clean the carpet from all angles, not just a one-dimensional stroke.

The original is made by Hydramaster (rotary jet extraction) and marketed as either the CMX-20, or RX-20. It can be used as a floor buffer, scrubbing machine, bonnet pad machine, or surface cleaner for concrete. This is accomplished by switching the pads on the bottom of the machine.

Originally Posted by RyanH

Truck-mounted units can range from $7000 up to over $20000 and have the same components as the portable units, just scaled up and more powerful. Some models use small 4-cylinder car engines (Nissan is a popular one) to power the vacuum pumps. The pressure on some can reach over 3000 psi, so some people use their setup for pressure washing as well (you would never use this for carpet, but you never know when you will need to push water up high and need the power). The units also have the ability to heat the water (absolutely essential for successful cleaning).

The units that go to 3000 psi and offer 3.5 to 4 gpm will not heat the water for pressure washing, unless you have an add on heater like a propane hotbox. The heat exchanger can not keep up with that flow rate. The units are usually adjustable via the unloader. While most do not like to do this, it works fine, because carpet cleaning uses less volume and pressure.

[Ron Musgraves]

http://bbs.ccsop.com/login.php Thats a carpet cleaning BBS.

[Tim Polk]

How much pressure is typically used to clean carpet?

[RyanH]

The shurflo in my carpet cleaner puts out around 60 psi, but the actual amount you should look for depends upon the type/length hose you intend to use and the tips you want. A van mounted unit will be able to put out much more than this but you can (and will) tune it down.

[Tim Polk]

I dont want to sound ignorant, but when it comes to carpet cleaning I am. Am I correct in saying that if I hook a carpet cleaning wand to my PW hose and use around 100 PSI and hot water and run a vac unit to the wand to extract, it will clean carpets too?

[One Tough Pressure]

Originally Posted by Tim Polk

Am I correct in saying that if I hook a carpet cleaning wand to my PW hose and use around 100 PSI and hot water and run a vac unit to the wand to extract, it will clean carpets too?

Tim,
Welcome to The Grime Scene, always glad to see another Californian.

You can and it will work, but if you plan to do this for customers then you will want to fine tune it at home first.
It is not just about the pressure, but the gpm as well. You do not want to flood the carpet even with a super suction vacuum it will take forever to dry.
Truck Mount carpet cleaners generally use 500 psi and below, and 1 gpm and below. You will have to bypass water on the hi pressure side of the pump. Depending how you do this, the burner may sense the flow and always be on which is a very bad thing. The other way it may not get enough flow and the burner will not come on at all.
I clean my carpets at home with my skid unit dialed down quite a bit. I would not attempt to go out and cean carpets as a business. I could play with it a bit more and maybe perfect it, but that is not the market I want to get.

[Tim Polk]

I would love to be able to clean my own carpets. GOd knows they could use it.

[RyanH]

Go to a local janitorial supply store. They usually rent out decent quality carpet cleaning machines. I paid around $30/day for one here before I finally bought the rental unit from them.