Oops! What Your Carpet Cleaner Can’t Predict

Spot that didn’t come out

​That spot that you really wanted to come out… didn’t. It is difficult to tell whether a spot will come out until after I have tried to clean it. Most often a spot that won’t come out is now a clean stain. (See Terminology) The difference is that a spot is something that’s “on” the carpet whereas a stain has “dyed” the carpet. If it can be corrected, it could either be re-dyed or bleached and then re-dyed. See Colour Repair

Buckling (bumps in carpet after cleaning) : Oh my God, What’s happening to the carpet?

If this has happened to you it can be frightening, equally so for the technician who sees it for the first time. The carpet has been cleaned and looks beautiful. But a short time later you start to see bumps or bubbles appearing.

​You wonder what is happening to your carpet? What has the cleaner done to the carpet? Don’t Panic, some carpets do this.

There are 3 layers to a carpets backing; the middle one is latex. When it absorbs moisture after cleaning it expands, forcing the carpet to buckle up. As soon as the moisture has evaporated, the latex contracts and the buckles disappear. In the worst case the carpet will actually stretch. Then a carpet stretcher is needed to re-stretch the carpet. In neither case is the carpet ruined.

I can’t always tell which carpets this will react like this. There are a few that can be predicted. But there is no need to panic. The carpet will be just fine. Just turn the heat up to about 20° and leave a few windows open about an inch. Circulate the air with a fan if you have one. Within 12 to 24 hours the carpet should look normal again.​

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Wicking (turns brown after cleaning): It looks dirtier after he cleaned it!

Carpets dry from the bottom to the top, water evaporating off the top, pulling the moisture from the bottom. The water wicks up the fiber like candle wax wicks up a wick. When there is fine soil left in the carpet after steam cleaning, the water can pull the soil up to the top of the fiber as it evaporates. Then what you see is the soil from the bottom of the carpet now on top of it. Sometimes a carpet can look worse after it is cleaned. Thorough pre-vacuuming prevents this.

And the Spot came back the very next day!

This is usually an oil or residue that has bled up from the bottom of the carpet. Often these clean off initially and wick back over a few days or weeks. Most times by retreating the area and thorough flushing, perhaps with a water claw (see Pet Odours), the spot may be removed permanently.