Prior to cleaning a rug yourself, you will first need to determine whether the dyes in the rug are subject to bleeding. To check this, take a wet white hand towel and push it into the darkest colors in the rug. Rotate in a circular motion, for about 5 seconds, as if you are turning a screw. Lift the towel and check for color in the towel. If you see color, there is a good possibility that your rug will bleed during the wash process. At this point I would recommend calling a professional to clean the rug. If you wash it and it bleeds, it will not be able to be corrected. DIY rug cleaning must start with a proper vacuum. Change out the vacuum bag and or clean all of the vacuum cleaner machine's filters. This way you will be able to maximize the ability of the machine to remove as much soil as possible. Remove the rug from your house and place on the driveway or other suitable area. Flip it upsided down and vacuum the back side of the rug with a vacuum that has a beater bar. Set the beater bar to it's lowest setting (bare floor). What this does is vibrate the dust and loose particulate soil from inside the rug fibers on the reverse side of the rug to fall off the rug or to the top of the rug fibers. Flip the rug back on it's right side after you have swept up the soil that had fallen off the rug. Vacuum the front of the rug in 4 different directions to ensure that you are maximizing the removal of the loose soil. In a standard pump-up lawn type sprayer, mix 6 ounces of liquid Tide to 2 gallons of water. Evenly spray the mixture onto the rug. Not enough to soak, but enough to dampen the rug. Using a garden hose, with a standard watering attachment, connect to your outside water faucet and evenly spray water on the rug. Use only enough to dampen the rug. Do not flood the rug as you will wash away the pre-spray. With a clean, standard garage broom, agitate and scrub the rug fibers until soap foam covers the rug. If the rug is not showing foan and bubbles, spray more mixture from your garden sprayer. At this point, you have emulsified soil, dirt and other staining lipids. Time to rinse. Using the garden hose, flood the rug with fresh water. During this process use a commercial type floor squeegee to push water and soap fronm the rug. Continue the rinse and squeegee until there are no longer soap bubbles. Squeegee as much of the excess water from the rug as possible. If you have a shop type vacuum, utilize it as a way to remove more moisture from your rug. In order to completely dry the rug, you can hang dry over a fence or perhaps an automobile. Consider using Carpet Star for your rug cleaning. We'll take the hassle and worry out of it. Call us at (972) 488-8060 or e-mail us at [email protected] Our web site, including pricing, can be found at http://www.carpetstar.net |