Does it Really Matter What Kind of Rug It Is? Yesterday in another thread Rugman made a great comment when he said, “Unless it is a cheap olefin rug”. It made me realize that when you say “Rug” I picture a hand-woven wool rug and base my answers on that. So unless you say tufted or machine made or silk or something I base my assumptions on that. The problem is that I may recommend cleaning a rug very differently depending on what it is and how it is made. Olefin you can clean pretty much like wall to wall carpet. Tufted, gun tufted, machine tufted whatever you call it is fairly simple as long as the latex backing is good. You need to check that. With hand-woven rugs, is it going to bleed, is the foundation cotton, wool or silk. Is the pile wool, silk, silk highlights, viscose, or cotton. I was with Jerry Iskyan at Rug Renovating last Sunday and he showed me a sample rug made with all the different fibers that one manufacturer (could have been Stark) uses in their rugs. I am not kidding they are making rugs from bananas, jute, hemp, silk, soy silk, aloe and many other fibers. I never even knew you could make rugs from bananas or aloe and I had to ask what soy silk was. My point is that the more you know the easier it gets. Time spent on Rug ID can steer you away from costly mistakes and it can also help you get more business. If you want to cash in on the rug boom you at least want to know the basics. If you took your car to the garage for a tune-up and the mechanic didn’t know if your car was gas or diesel would you trust him. Heck, would you even leave your car there? Best wishes, Barry O’Connell http://www.OrientalRugTalk.com/
I agree! I suck at id'ing rugs - where they came from etc. I get many cheapo rugs with latex backing (the ones form pottery barn that smell bad) - many guys won't clean them. I use my cimex and encap - might have to do them a couple times lightly but they come out fine. Nicer rugs i check for bleed and construction then clean them. I used to do all the uph cleaning for a large rug cleaning shop - they had this huge price list with all different prices for different rugs - Chinese, Persian, American etc. Thing I realized as I spent lots of time there - they cleaned them all the same pretty much! (they had a Moore machine). It is a good thing to be able to tell customers all about their rugs but don't get caught up in it and think you have to do it to clean them.
Carpet installations are down and with the real estate market slow things are tight in many areas as guys lower their price to hold theirr market share. At the same time area rug sales are way up. Not just the Oriental rugs but the area rugs are growing part of the market. Plus competition in carpet is tough and many guys are looking for a way to boost income. More and more carpet cleaners are doing rugs on the side. Rugs tend to be a lot more profitable. Best wishes, Barry O’Connell http://www.orientalrugtalk.com
Looking at industry figures for 10 years, rug sales have been up each year. Looking at shorter period of time, just the last two years, the dollar volume of rugs has been steady, no increase. However, the number of rugs sold continues to grow. This would mean there are smaller rugs and less expensive rugs being sold. Maybe price cutting. Maybe fewer top quality rugs and more mass produced rugs being sold. Maybe some of both.
