Carpet Cleaning Bradenton FL

Be careful what you use on your oriental rugs to remove spots! Many cleaning products will damage your rugs by causing them to brown, discolor/bleach, colors to bleed, etc. If you are unsure if a cleaning product is unsafe for your rug, then it is best not to use it. If you must get that spot out and you don’t have the patience to wait for a professional, I recommend using just a few drops of dove detergent to a cup of water. Just enough to make the water a little soapy. (do not attempt on silk! call Guaranteed Carpet & Tile Care at 923-2498). Blot up any liquid or gently scrape up any solid that is on the rug. Then dip a cloth into your cleaning mixture and gently blot the spot. If you are getting dye transfer to the cloth you are using, stop immediately. DO NOT GET OUT A WIRE BRUSH AND SCRUB THE RUG AS HARD AS YOU CAN! Aggressive spot removal will permanently damage the fibers trading one problem for another.

 If the spot does not come out or are unsure of what you are doing, call Guaranteed Carpet & Tile Care at 923-2498. Cleaning a valuable rug when you don’t know what you are doing can and probably will result in a costly mistake!
The sooner you respond to the spill the better your results will be. If you

Hi all!

 You don’t have to go out and spend money on all those over the counter cleaners to take care of you tile floors. You probably already have what you need at home. When maintaining your tile floor, I recommend using 1 to 2 ounces of dish detergent such as Dawn to a gallon of hot water. This formula won’t damage any sealer that you may have on your grout and doesn’t leave a sticky residue behind to attract soil. Occasionally you may want to rinse with a white vinegar/water solution (1 cup white vinegar to 1 gallon of hot water).

Ok, lay down the jackhammer and step away before you do something drastic!

Taking care of your tile floor doesn’t have to require desperate measures. Providing you haven’t let dirt and grime build up on it for 15 years before you decide to clean it. The key to keeping your tile floor sparkling is regular maintenance with a low residue cleaning agent. Most problems that I see when I go into a home with dirty tile and grout is from cleaning products that leave a sticky residue and attract soil. This is especially noticeable in the grout lines because they sit lower than the tile surface so all the dirty water that you pushed around with your mop ends up there.

Can you clean it yourself? yes

Will you feel like you’ve been beaten about the back and knees with a bag of marbles? oh yes

 Cleaning a tile floor yourself after it’s been neglected for years is grueling work. Your back and knees will thank you if you have the floor professionally cleaned and sealed first. A reputable company will have the equipment to get your floor as clean as it can be. Once you are starting with a clean slate, your tile and grout will stay clean for a long time with the proper maintenance cleaning. Visit our website at www.healthyhometip.com to learn more about our cleaning process and how Guaranteed Carpet & Tile Care can get your tile and grout back to sparkling again.

 Check back soon. I will teach you how to maintain your floor properly without the residue build up and keeping your floor sparkling for a long time.

Kenny Ferguson

I frequently get asked the question above and I am unhappy to say that the answer is no. When heavy furniture sits on carpet for many years, the backing of the carpet gets stretched out of shape. The only real way to take it out 100% is to actually cut out that part of the carpet and replace it with a new piece. But that is basically trading one problem for another.

There is some hope though for at least some relief. You can put an ice cube in the holes and just leave them there to melt. The cold water from the ice cube will cause the backing to shrink a little giving you some improvement.

 I hope this helps. Please leave some feedback if you try this and it works or doesn’t. I’ve recommended it before and the results were surprisingly good but not perfect.

Before resulting to putting everything under your kitchen sink on a urine stain, please try these steps first. Using the wrong product on some spots can set the spot making it permanent. When urine is first deposited, it has a neutral to slightly acidic pH. At this stage, blot up as much as possible with a towel or paper towel. Make sure the paper towels don’t have a pattern on them because the ink can transfer to your carpet/upholstery. If it is a lot of urine, place a heavy object on your towel or paper towels and leave for about 10 minutes. Now take a clean towel and dampen with water and gently blot the spot. Following up with a solution of one part white vinegar and three parts water will help neutralize any urine that may be a few hours to days old. If you are having some odor or are concerned and want to prevent odor before it starts, there are many products containing enzymes that digest any urine that you did not get out completely. Urine-Off and Natures Miracle work well. Follow the directions on the label. If you have any resoiling in those areas, try cleaning them with just a damp cloth. Many over-the-counter spot removers will just make the situation worse by leaving more residue behind.

Are you about to have a nervous breakdown because your three year old decided to express her artistic abilities all over the living room carpet? Try these simple steps first before resulting to pharmaceuticals.

Ink removal can be one of the trickiest things to remove from your carpet and upholstery. A spot the size of the head of a pin can grow to the size of a softball if you aren’t careful. Don’t attempt this if there is a lot of ink on your upholstery or carpet. It may call for a professional with some experience in the matter. Make sure that if you do call a professional that he is IICRC certified. An amateur could make things worse for you. If you are going to attempt this yourself, make sure that you test any products that you use on an inconspicuous area first. You don’t want to end up with a bleached spot in the middle of you living room.

      1) Use a dropper to drip a barrier of hydrogen peroxide around the ink spot. This will keep the ink contained within the peroxide barrier so that it doesn’t get bigger.

     2) Put some ink remover (can get from janitorial supply store) or acetone (nail polish remover) on a white cotton towel.

     3) blot the spot with the acetone/ink remover from the outside of the spot while working you way to the middle until there is no more ink transfer to the towel. Be careful not to take color out of the fabric or carpet you are working on. If you do, you will be trading one problem for another.

     4) drip a little acetone/ink remover onto the spot and vacuume with a wet/dry vac. DO NOT saturate the spot with acetone/ink remover because it will delaminate the carpet.

     5) Stop when the spot does not transfer to the towel anymore or is completely gone.

     6) Rinse the spot well with a neutral pH spot remover. A few drops of Dawn dish detergent to a half cup of water will work fine. Don’t make it too soapy or the soap will attract soil. Rinse again with plain water until there is no more residue.

Have you ever wondered if you are cleaning your floors and fabrics enough? Or too much? Are there frequency guidelines for professional cleaning? If so, where do you find them? Surely you have heard “Wait as long as you can before you clean your carpet…” or “Once you’ve cleaned your carpet, it’s never the same…”.  These widely used comments have stemmed from unfortunate encounters with uninformed cleaners that have left the carpet with an overload of detergent residue. The consumer has assumed that this is the case with all carpet cleaning and resolved to wait until the carpet is in dire straights to clean it.  The good news is that a properly cleaned carpet will not re-soil as quickly and will actually last longer. Why? Because damaging soils are removed with effective cleaning. Soil that is not removed by vacuuming, even though it can rarely be seen by the naked eye, cuts and slices on the carpet fibers as the carpet is being walked on breaking down the carpet yarns in the traffic areas. The result is that even with restorative cleaning at that point, it will not correct the damage that has been done to the fiber. Fiber producers and carpet manufacturers recommend that a residential carpet should be professionally cleaned at least 18 to 24 months for best performance, more often in heavily trafficked and heavy soiling situations.  A Clean Carpet is a Healthy Carpet Not to mention that a carpet that is not cleaned on a regular basis is an unhealthy carpet. Carpet is like a sink. It collects soils, pollens, insecticides, exhaust, etc. that gets tracked in or blown in from the polluted outdoors. This creates and unhealthy indoor environment.  What About My Hard Surface Floors and Rugs?  Hard surface floors can also be permanently damaged by not being professionally cleaned on a regular basis. For example, hardwood floors get deep scratch patterns. The grout on stone and tile floors isn’t sealed or the sealer has been affected by household cleaners and no longer repels the soil and spillage. Also, the grout is a “valley” that the soil gets mopped into on a daily basis.  And finally, a 9 x 12 Oriental Rug can hold up to 87 pounds of soil without looking dirty! This was demonstrated by a study done by the Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company. So, get your rugs cleaned about once a year as well.

 Unfortunately spots happen and usually this time of the year when all your friends and family come to visit. If your family is anything like the family on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, you’re going to get spots. Relax. Don’t Panic. The following procedures will help you with removing those unsightly spots from your carpet and upholstery.  If you need further assistance, Guaranteed Carpet & Tile Care’s highly trained and friendly staff can bail you out of almost any situation. Hope this helps you survive the holidays. There will be a home spotting guide coming soon to our website www.carpetcleaningsarasota.com . Please check back often.

1. Catch it while it’s fresh, when chances of removal are 75% better. Don’t iron or hot-air dry until the stain is gone. Heat will set most stains.  
2. First blot up all the liquid and scrape up all the solids you can. On a large liquid spill you can use a wet/dry vac. Be careful not to spread the stain.
3. Test any chemical you intend to use in a hidden area to make sure it won’t discolor or damage the surface.
4. Apply spotter and work from the outside of the stain in, to avoid spreading. Blot, don’t scrub; strike with the flat face of a spotting brush if needed to help break up the stain.
5. Rinse chemical spotters out with water, blot the area dry and feather the edges. Brush or fluff up pile or nap.

6. On carpet and upholstery, put a thick pad of toweling over the spot, weight it down with books, and leave it there overnight to “wick up” any remaining moisture.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays

Kenny Ferguson

Hello and welcome all friends and clients.  I will be occasionally posting useful information on spot removal, floor selection, and maintenance issues.

Please check back often.

Thanks,

Kenny Ferguson