Carpet Cleaner Buyer's Guide

HOW TO DISQUALIFY A CARPET CLEANER FROM BEING HIRED BEFORE THEY COME TO YOUR BUSINESS:

Disqualification #1: UNBELIEVABLY LOW PRICE. Who isn’t attracted to a low price? We all want to work within a budget. But some carpet cleaners use a really low and unrealistic price as the bait for their false and misleading advertising. They offer a cheap price-usually between $.05 and $.10 per square foot and then, once they are in your office, they pressure you into buying “add-ons”. If you don’t buy the extras, you are left with substandard work at best. It’s as if you were buying a house and found the homeowner was charging you extra for windows and doors. Carpet cleaning is not as cheap as some unethical cleaners would like you to believe.

Disqualification #2: BAIT AND SWITCH. Dual process carpet cleaning describes the process of shampooing or heavy pre-conditioning, followed by hot water extraction cleaning (many refer to this as two-step or double cleaning). Unfortunately, unethical carpet cleaners often use dual process as a bait-and-switch technique. Here’s how it is done: First they “bait” you with a basic cleaning (single process) at an unbelievably low price. Then when you call, they try to “switch” you to more expensive dual process cleaning. If you don’t fall for their switch and choose their basic service, you’ll likely receive poor workmanship using little to no chemical and they will not guarantee their work. An ethical cleaner will do whatever it takes to properly clean your carpet.

Disqualification #3: UNSUPPORTED CLAIMS. “THIS CLEANING METHOD IS THE BEST.” You’ll read this in almost every ad. You’ll hear this from virtually every carpet cleaner. Remember this: The method that’s best for you is the method that achieves your goal. If you want a method that dries quickly, then a method that takes a long time to dry isn’t best for you. So before you choose a carpet cleaner, identify your objectives. Then select the method that best reaches those objectives. You will learn more about the various cleaning methods in Chapter 4.

Disqualification #4: OUTDATED BELIEFS. “HOT WATER DAMAGES YOUR CARPET”. Years ago, many people believed this was true because their carpets were damaged by “technicians” who didn’t know how to properly clean using hot water. But today we know it’s false. By washing and then rinsing your carpet with hot water, your carpet is thoroughly cleaned in the same way a person who showers and rinses off the dirt and soap will be much cleaner than the person who takes only a sponge bath is. Obviously, each carpet cleaner will be biased toward their own method. And each method does have advantages. So I suggest you look at what carpet manufacturers say. Shaw Industries, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer in the world, recommends hot water extraction (better known as steam) cleaning, as well as most of the methods outlined in Chapter 4.

Disqualification #5: IMPROPERLY APPLIED CARPET PROTECTOR. Many carpet cleaners offer carpet protection as an additional service to their clients. This is commonly referred to as ScotchGard or Teflon. Unfortunately, some of the unethical carpet cleaners will spray on water only. This “Aqua-guard” offers very little in carpet protection.

Another problem lies in the technician following the dilution rates rather than the coverage rates. Allow me to explain. The label will instruct the technician to mix the product with water, anywhere from 5-16 to 1, depending on the product. A gallon of the unmixed product will cover anywhere from 800-1200 square feet.

This leaves the carpet cleaner with a dilemma. Following both the dilution and coverage rates will leave the carpet way to wet. This leads to the carpet cleaner not giving you proper coverage so as not to over-wet the carpet. However, by reducing the dilution rate, proper coverage can be attained without over-wetting.

Disqualification #6: Your cleaner is not IICRC trained or certified. The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification or IICRC, is the training body for carpet cleaners. They also set mill approved standards for cleaning. The training and certification you would want to see from your technician are the CCT or Carpet Cleaning Technician. Even if their membership card is expired, it still indicates that your technician has completed two days of classroom training and wrote an exam at the end with a score exceeding 80%. However due to the constant change in carpet fibers and cleaning technologies, if the certification is more than five years old, they may need a refresher.

Take A Look At What Some Of Our Clients Had To Say.