Why the Big Deal About Pre-Vacuuming

Ever try to brush a wet hair off your hand.  You wipe it on your pants, now you've got a wet hair on your pants!  80% of soil in the carpet is loose.  Loose soil is best removed dry.  If you remove the soil OUT of the carpet than it is easier to steam clean the soil OFF the carpet.

Many cleaning companies rely on their powerful truck to.

"We've got a super Duper sucking machine that will suck all the soil out of your carpet!"

It just ain't going to happen.  Truck mounted steam clean machines are designed to extract water.  The wands are designed to extract water not dry soil.

"We use a special floor attachment to vacuum soil."

Even with all that vacuum, unless they can see the soil they're removing, chances are they will leave a lot in the carpet.  I base that on my own experience, removing tons of soil, spending hours vacuuming carpets that have already been pre vacuum by the owner. 

 

One Cleaner’s Nightmare!

He was cleaning a green fifth-generation stain master carpet that the homeowner had pre vacuum.  He applied his pre-spray to the carpet and started cleaning.  White blotches started appearing as he cleaned!  The homeowner came in and exclaimed "what have you done to my carpet!!"  The cleaner didn't know what happened.  The pre-spray he was using is very safe on all carpets and had never reacted this way before.

Long story short, the client’s housecleaner had been using a powdered carpet deodorizer but their vacuum wasn't removing it all.  These powders contain chlorine. When it mixed with the pre-spray -Presto!  - Bleach!

These pictures show one of several canisters of soil removed from ONE Living Room carpet.  You can easily see that if I had not pre-vacuumed there would have been a lot of mud left in the carpet!

I spent 2 1/2 hours vacuuming this living room carpet, about 200 square feet (see below), that was already pre-vacuumed. It was full of this carpet deodorizing powder that you would never have known was there by looking at the carpet. I removed approximately 14 canisters of the powder. Any other cleaner would have just presprayed and steam cleaned, a ton of muddy powder still left in the carpet!

Now in hindsight, had he vacuumed with a machine like I use, he would have seen that there was deodorizer powder in the carpet and mentioned it to the clients.  Most likely, as in my experience, he would have removed the powder by vacuuming and it wouldn't have even being an issue.

Very simply, by vacuuming thoroughly before cleaning, I remove all the dust, hair, lint, etc. from out of the carpet so it doesn't turn to mud and stick to the back of the carpet.  It would then need to be flushed out of the carpet in which is much harder to do.

 Wicking this is caused by fine soil left in the carpet and as a carpet dries it "Wicks" to the top of the fibers making the carpet look soiled again.  Unless a carpet is extremely soiled this can be prevented by thoroughly pre-vacuuming.

 

Wool carpets collect soil so gradually that you never realize how soiled they are until they are cleaned. This picture shows the soil removed from a 4x6 area rug, all sand!!

 
   

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To Contact Me:

Happy Carpet Cleaners

1988 Kaltasin Road

Sooke, BC, V0S 1N0

 

Scheduling & Emergencies: 250-881-4382

Fax: 250-642-3800

Email: gethappy@gethappy.ca

 

 

original site developed 2003 by DavisDigital.ca

and modified 2005 by Ron Werner gethappy@gethappy.ca