Carpet cleaning-professional or do it yourself?
If you scroll down the page, you’ll see a post I published at 3:30 AM this morning (seems like a looong time ago, too) about a contest to win a home makeover, and how I’d like to enter because our back playroom has the foulest carpet you could ever imagine. Someone asked me (kindly, I might add) in an email why we don’t just hire a carpet cleaner to come in and take care of it?
Well, you see, we have. In fact, within a few days of closing the sale and getting the keys, I hired a very reputable company to come in and clean all the carpets. Two very nice gentlemen came with their pretreating spray and their giant cleaning machine and proceeded to clean all the carpets. I’ll never forget how after they cleaned the master bedroom carpet, it actually changed color, and not just because it was wet, because it was clean.
It is expensive to hire a professional carpet cleaner, but they do have more powerful cleaning solutions, their machines do a better job of agitating the carpet to work the solution in, and also more powerful suction to remove the cleaning solution and the dirt, and they also have the patience to go over every square inch of the carpet. Although we have resorted to renting cleaning machines from Home Depot to remove large spills, in general I always hire a professional service.
What about you? If your home has carpet, do you hire professional carpet cleaners to come in, or do you clean it yourself?
I used to own a home carpet cleaner, but it was too much work and too much mess. When it broke, I never replaced it. When we bought this house I hired a professional carpet cleaner to come in and they did a great job. I look for specials and coupons, and got on their email list so I get emails with that info in it. It’s been a year and a new puppy added to the family, so I’m thinking some of the rooms are about due for another cleaning. I won’t have to do the whole house again, just the rooms we spend the most time in.
I’ve never hired anyone - though until recently we’ve never been in a financial position to afford having someone do our carpets. Instead I have a spot cleaner - the Bissell Little Green - it works amazing on small spots, and is portable enough to whip out everytime the kiddos spill something!
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I’ve never hired a professional carpet cleaner. I’m too cheap. We just vacuum, and call it good. Our carpet sucks anyway, and we want to replace it with hardwoods at some point. Until then? We call it the immunity-boosting-wonder for our kiddos (i.e. there’s so much crap in 30yo carpets that the kids have no choice but to become immune to the crap after they’ve been licking salt off the carpet).
My mother in law bought us a steam cleaner (a Bissell i guess?) when i was pregnant since she said that we will definitely encounter many spills & stains in our upcoming days. We have a 15 1/2 year old dog whose bladder is slowing shrinking as the months go by, so that steam cleaner definitely came in handy even before our little 2 year started making stains (chocolate milk has been the biggest culprit). We nipped that in the bud really quick (only white milk) but still steam clean the carpets every three months (we also don’t wear shoes in the house which definitely helps minimize stains).
I bought a steam cleaning service for my parents (Stanley Steamers) & they loved it! That got their sofas, chairs, steps, dining room, family room all sanitized & cleaned. They definitely would recommend it.
I used to clean carpets for a living. I have worked with Service Master and I have run my own business. Hiring a service? It all depends. If you have a lot of carpet to clean and some furniture too, it might be worth your while to have the service come in and do it all for you. They know what they are doing and can usually get most stains out. If you don’t clean carpet and furniture every day, you may not realize how much work it can be to do a good job.
If you do hire a service, here is a little advice to save you some cash and aggravation. in general, stay away from the department store companies (Sears, Marshall Fields, Penney’s, Montgomery Wards etc). They have a reputation of not training their people very well and you will hardly ever hear of anyone getting a positive experience from them. Next, stay away from the big franchises (Serve Pro, Service Master, Stanley Steamer). You will pay 15-20% more with them because of the famous name and all of their advertising. If you have a lot of money and want to have the prestige of the fancy truck in your driveway, then, be my guest. I would look for someone who is local and an owner/operator. Make sure they have a “truck-mount” cleaning unit. The machine is in their truck. They do not bring it into your house and use your water. You have to understand how powerful these machines are compared to a rug doctor. A rug doctor will have about 40 psi of water pressure while a truck mount unit will have about 400-800 psi. The vacuum is also about 10-20 times more powerful which will let your carpets dry in a fraction of the time. Make sure they use fresh clean water to rinse the soap out of your carpet. If the soap is in the rinse water, there will be a soap residue in your carpet which will attract dirt and cause the carpet cleaner to come out more often. This is a carpet cleaners trick to make more money.
If I did not have access to a powerful machine, I would hire it done. I can get a really good machine for $40 per day. If you only have one small room, it might be worth renting a “Rug Doctor” with the vibrating brush on it. Carpet cleaning companies do not like doing little jobs. They have to spend time traveling to your house, unpacking equipment and repacking it again. It is more cost effective for them to do at least three rooms. many of them have $100 minimum charges. You might get three rooms for $120 and they move all the furniture.
Jeff Iversen’s last blog post..How To Magnetize A Baby: Food Addictions
I clean it myself. I have a little green machine that I use to clean up the spills and when I feel froggy I use to clean all the carpets. It’s time to get a bigger machine though so I can clean the carpets standing up instead of on my hands and knees.
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I too am in the cleaning business and agree with Jeff. You can get good results with a company or by doing it yourself. Just be aware, if you do decide to do it yourself, that cleaning carpet is very physical work. If you do rent a machine, I suggest that you rent a machine when you have enough time to do a good job and enough carpet to make a rental purchase along with chemicals a good buy. Another tip is to use one or more fans in the rooms you clean. These can be simple box fans to help get the air moving and speed up the time it takes to dry your carpet. If you can, turn the furnace fan on, which will help circulate air to help dry your carpet faster.