This Tues I have a residential job, it is a four rm house, two rms are good old cut pile crap (as the home owner told me) and two rooms are old wall to wall wool carpet. He says that they had them cleaned a few years back and they came out good but he didn't remember how they cleaned them.

I am worried about cleaning wool as this is my first wool carpet. I will be using a 17" roto with Tuway Thin ones and I was thinking hydrox. Anyone have any advise as to what to do? Or what to use.

Thanks

As we don't get Hydrox down under, I can't really say.

But hey, carpet is carpet, why all the drama. ??

The wool has been running around paddocks all it's lifetime until it was shorn, scoured in hotter temperatures than most truck mounts can apply to it, and had nearly all the oils (lanolin) removed.

Then it's sent to the mill and comes out as the product we all know.

Just don't over-wet it and you should be fine.

In commercial installations, I have seen splitting of the seams, but as they dried, they pulled together again, (in this case it was faulty carpet laying).

In bars, I have also seen shrinkage due to the sugar in the alcohol spilled onto the carpet.

I forgot what you are using Cimex ?? rotary ??

If rotary, don't be too aggressive or you may have some problems depending on the pile.

I would use DS, if not, then a woolsafe approved product.

But that's only my opinion.


PS:::: Okay, re-read your post, rotary with Tuway thin ones, don't know them.

Joe, the "ox" in Hydrox is hydrogen peroxide. My very short Google search says wool and hydrogen peroxide are NOT a match. Unless you get a big go ahead from Rick, I would stand down and pick a different product. I suppose the product could be safe for wool but I would want to know for sure.

Bleaching your first wool carpet could be detrimental to your long term business goals.

Just sayin'

I don't know about the rotary with tuway's, we only have Cimex's. That said I would use DS or DS2. We use it alot in our rug cleaning plant. Also take fans with you to get it dry fast as wool takes longer to dry than synthetic carpet.

Maybe Rick will be around to let you know about the machine.

I use a peroxide booster on light colored wool carpets. At rtu dilutions I would expect hydrox to be OK. Perhaps you could ring Rick if you're unsure. Hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. It breaks down to H2O & O (water & oxygen). Learn about it, it is a great tool to have.

Hydrox says safe for wool on the label. I have used it on lots of rugs as the hydrox extracts well.

David

I have used Hydrox with Cimex and soft brushes on wool area rugs after testing for color fastness. Don't get it too wet. I dry the rugs with an airpath fan.

When I first got to the house I took a good look at the carpet.

Bare spots in two of the areas (you could see the backing), little paint flicks all over and a nice 3 inch long burn spot in center of one of the so called wool carpeted rooms, looking at the burn spot it looked hard around the edges and beeded.

I said to my son this is not wool he said do a burn test.

Answer to the burn test, it beeded up real quick.

So the wool turned out to be a fox in sheeps clothing.

Now the customer says that an old neighbor of there's sold carpet at one point many years ago and I think they fell for it.

The wife kept telling me how much they paid for it and I think at that point she knew she was taken for a ride.

Anyway, she was happy and I was at ease.

This happens every once in a while, people tell us they have wool carpets when booking the job, when we get to the house it is not wool.
We just shutup clean the carpets, get paid, and leave.

I agree Don. People tell us they have wool rugs and they don't, but we tell them when we see this because we don't charge as much for synthetic rugs in our rug cleaning plant. The other thing is most people have no idea how big their rug is. We had a lady the other day tell us on the phone that the rug was 20' x 20' and we got there to pick it up and it was 8' x 10'.

Kevin Pearson
http://www.pearsoncarpetcare.com

That's a good one. Saying I have a 20 x 20 and then it's an 8 x 10.

Kind of like saying I drive a Jag but then when I pull up at your house you tell me it's a amc pacer.

Exactly, we sent two guys to pick that rug up and our big box truck and then it turned out one guy could have got it in a van.

Kevin Pearson
http://www.pearsoncarpetcare.com