Preventative Maintenance

Your carpet is not only a valuable investment but its appearance tells your visitors something about you. The main objective of a maintenance programme will be to preserve, as nearly as practical, the original beauty and appearance of the carpet and prolong its useful life. Preventative maintenance will protect your investment but you must plan or programme that maintenance.

In the past carpets have been neglected only to be cleaned when it was obvious that attention was necessary. This is known as "crisis cleaning". This approach is not only old fashioned, but has been proved to be a false economy. In addition to the carpet looking scruffy its life is being drastically reduced. Preventative maintenance, which has to be planned, will extend the life and enhance the appearance of the carpet because the carpet "destroyer" - soil - will be effectively removed.

Danger Areas

A further objective of preventative maintenance will be to confine the majority of maintenance efforts to the areas with the most need. Foot traffic accounts for 80% of the soil deposited on the carpet which builds up in two main areas.

Track-off Areas:

This is where foot soil is traced from outdoors or from hard surface floors indoors. This is where the carpet catches and holds most of the dirt.

Funnel Areas:

This is where foot traffic is squeezed through concentrated area such as a doorway or on a stairwell. Soil builds up imperceptibly in these areas. That's why planned attention must be given in advance. Attention must also be given to high risk areas where spills and stains easily occur such as near vending machines and drinking fountains, in washrooms and around general food areas.

Vacuum Cleaning

The purpose of vacuum cleaning is to remove soil from the carpet and restore the pile. Naturally, heavy traffic areas require more attention to remove dirt particles. These areas should be vacuumed at least once a day, as should primary and secondary traffic lanes. Medium traffic areas should be attended to at least twice a week. Light traffic areas and the rest of the carpet should be thoroughly vacuumed at least once a week. Even though time consuming, regular vacuuming is very cost effective and can remove up to 80% of surface dirt.

A vacuum cleaner with a motor driven brush and beater bar does the best job of cleaning. The beater bar loosens the compacted dirt making it easier for the brush and vacuum effect to remove the particles. Operate the machine slowly back and forth and let it do the work. Don't hurry - this is another false economy.

Carpet Cleaning

Routine vacuum cleaning does delay general cleaning but eventually the carpet colour dulls. As dirt compacts into the carpet a point is reached where it is not collected effectively at the track-off areas. The dirt is then carried by feet further into the building to form more soil reservoirs. Additionally the oil content of the soil (up to 15%) causes particles to stick to carpet fibre and resist vacuuming. To restore the carpet to its best condition, frequent light cleaning gives the best result and is often very cost effective. There are two main types of soil extraction cleaning systems - wet extraction and rotary disc.

Wet Extraction

This is used where there are heavy soil build-ups and deep cleaning is required. This system works by spraying a hot detergent and water solution under pressure into the pile immediately followed by the extraction of the solution by vacuum head mounted adjacent to the spray nozzle. Care must be taken with wet methods. Over saturation causes shrinkage and seam splitting. Drying time can extend from several hours to a day or more. The operator must be skilled and have experience to understand the relationships between soil conditions, humidity and the amount of moisture to apply to avoid over wetting.

Rotary Disc

This method of cleaning is generally used as part of a regular maintenance programme and offers an opportunity for the life expectancy of the carpet to be extended. Regular vacuuming and applying a light shampoo rotary action to the pile can result in the causes of premature wear being drastically reduced.