Tips for getting into area rugs top down style.

[pgcleaner]

I did my first area rug job. Two shaggy 100% polypropylene rugs. Easy. Low heat and pressure with an acid rinse. I put a blower on each one and they were dry before I left.

I am going out to give an estimate for two rugs and drapes. One wool rug and one silk rug. I plan to read the tags, bleed test them, and take lots of pictures. No idea about the drapes yet.

I want to focus top-down HWE on rugs going forward. Messing around with low moisture and a CRB/175 seems like it could tare up the fibers. HWE with a wand seems more gentile. Stanley Steemer style.

Can I HWE wool and silk rugs if I use a product like Matrix Accomplish Fine Fabric Pre Spray with an acid rinse? I will make sure to not over wet them and dry them ASAP.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[OxiFreshGuy]

I would personally never HWE a silk rug. Asking for trouble there.

Wool - be extremely gentle with it, use a wool safe pre-spray (Like Robs Rug Smack) and then acid rinse.

Dry it as fast as possible. Go real gentle, no scrubbing, no oxidizers etc.

 

[pgcleaner]

I would personally never HWE a silk rug. Asking for trouble there.

Wool - be extremely gentle with it, use a wool safe pre-spray (Like Robs Rug Smack) and then acid rinse.

Dry it as fast as possible. Go real gentle, no scrubbing, no oxidizers etc.

How would you do a silk rug top down?

 

[Andreas 1]

How would you do a silk rug top down?

Keep to chems safe for natural fibers and, as always, when in doubt do a test spot. We occasionally run into one. Last year had a 20x30 on some mega yacht.

 

[SRD]

Good luck brother

 

[Darthmaeglin]

Often synthetic rugs are made similarly to synthetic wall-to-wall. As long as they don't have jute or something like that in the foundation they tend to be pretty resistant to water damage and dry quickly. There are always outliers, but cleaning synthetics like wall-to-wall tends to work alright. I have a couple in the shop that I'm about to go clean this way because they don't need anything special.

Naturals tend to be a different beast. To start with they hold water like crazy, but they can also have more layers than it looks like and usually are woven more densely. A top-down cleaning simply can not remove as much debris from most natural rugs. This construction is also trouble if you don't have a strategy to dry them super fast because they are much more likely to brown, become crunchy, or bleed if left too wet too long. Uneven wetting or uncontrolled drying can also distort the fibers or set inconsistencies (ie. a dogtooth pattern) which can be a job to correct. Silk can be especially touchy with the dyes and art silk (or whatever they're calling it these days) takes even more work to prevent damage.

None of this is meant to discourage you from doing what you think is right for yourself and your customer, it's just information to use as you please. Low pressure, low temperature, and as Andreas said natural-specific products will get you through most cases. That said, most tools don't do every thing and sometimes cleaning a rug top-down is like driving in a screw with a hammer.

Incidentally, if you're worried about tearing up rugs look up rug cleaning on YouTube.

 

[Tom Forsythe]

Low moisture cleaning is easier and safer in the home than extraction cleaning. Cleaning with a counter rotating brush machine with the softest brush selection for wool takes care of excessive agitation for almost all rugs except some fragile antique rugs, slitted surface kilims, and chain stitch flatweaves. The low moisture generally prevents bleeding that can occur from hot water extraction. Silk rugs are really quite rare and typically are viscose or rayon sold as silk rugs which have many potential issues. I would suggest not doing the silk rug or taking it to an experienced rug plant for the customer. https://blog.aramsco.com/encapsulating-area-rugs

 

[pgcleaner]

Good luck brother

Call me crazy:
Can I just acid rinse them?

 

[SRD]

Call me crazy:
Can I just acid rinse them?

Handmade rugs are a whole different breed brother so many things to look out for (especially silk) that can literally destroy that rug.
Construction, material, dyes, how it was dyed, the list goes on. Unless your prepared to buy the rug brother i wouldnt touch it with hwe.

 

[Andreas 1]

Rinses for natural fibers are acid-side rinses. And as Darthmaeglin said make sure it's not "art silk"/viscose/rayon. These are finding their way into many houses around here through the decorators who don't know any better. 1 out of 10 have extreme non-reversible browning issues. We still haven't figured out why. Perhaps the plant fiber it's based on is the key.

 

[Timothyscarpet]

We've used our continuous flow upholstery tool on viscose before with no browning issues, on silk or fake silk pile distortion is another thing to keep in mind, it needs to be groomed almost like velvet upholstery. Every job has some risk involved so just weigh vs reward. It's nice to find out what your limits are and you'll only do that by going too far on some jobs......

 

[pgcleaner]

 

[Fedri]

I only clean silk or viscose with a dry cleaning solvent. No water is involved. The first thing is to vacuum thoroughly, mist the dry cleaner, agitate with the wand by gliding on the rug, then just extract using the wand. This method is not as effective as he but if the area rug is in good shape with minimum spots it will give a nice shine to it after the cleaning using the dry cleaning method. No promises to the customer.

 

[pgcleaner]

I got some small rugs to practice on. The small one is wool and the larger is silk and wool.

 

[Michaels Redwine]

Maintaining your carpets and rugs on a regular basis will help to keep them looking fantastic and your home feeling warm and inviting. Vacuuming rugs once or twice a week is recommended. odours can be neutralised by sprinkling some baking soda on the floor before vacuuming. To avoid harming the rug's fibres and extending its life, don't use the beater bar and turn down the airflow feature

 

[Jimferner]

Hey, Thanks everyone for this information, I'll try it soon