Cleaning Guidelines
I. Consumer Checklist for Routine (Precleaning) Carpet Maintenance
One of the most critical, though often neglected, responsibilities of carpet owners involves routine maintenance. The useable life, appeaarance, and frequency of cleaning of installed carpet are affected substantially by the type, quality, and frequency of home and office maintenance procedures. Precleaning maintenance must address the following.
a.Controlling Soil - Most abrasive particulate soil accumulates initially witing the first few feet of major entries of commerical buildings. Once inside, this soil takes its toll on carpet fibers and on teh general appearance of the structure. It also contributes airborne particles that affect overall indoor air quality. Every effort should be made to keep this soil accumulation outside by the use of properly selected entry mats. Mat selection (type and size) must consider the type and amount of soil exposure and the number of people using a structure.
Circmstances permitting, entry mats that collect or absorb soil and mositure should be placed prior to carpet areas in entries of businesses and, if possible, not on top of the carpet. They must be maintained by periodic vacuuming, shaking, and cleaning or with periodic exchange by mat rental or cleaning companies.
b.Vacuuming Carpet - Routine vacuuming with properly maintained,good quality equipment is the most important step a business owner/manager can take to prolong the life and enhance the appearance of carpet. A top-fill up-right vacuum with brush agitation should be selected and used with routine frequency. Equally important, soil that is loosened and vacuum from carpet must be collected in the vacuum's recovery system and not allowed to reenter the air within the structure to contribute to indoor air pollution. For this reason, a high-efficiency filtering system or bag should be used in any vacuum equipment employed.
c.Immediate Spotting - Most spots can be removed easily if the excess is lifted or blotted and the soiled area is treated immediately by carpet owners with plain water or with spotters containing mild (PH range of 5-9), dilute detergents that do not leave residue. If ignored, those spots, or components thereof, may bond with fiber dye sites, forming permanent stains. Immediate spotting is an essential responsiblility for home and business owners/managers.
II.Consumer Checklis for Cleaning Carpet
a.Cleaning Frequency - Installed residential carpet exposed to routine use should be programmed for cleaning at least annually. Carpet that is subjected to extreme soiling or heavy use, particularly high-traffice areas, or carpet installed in occupied by persons with allergy or res-piratory problems requires greater cleaning frequency. Carpet in low-traffic areas, such as formal living rooms and dining rooms needs less frequent cleaning.
Commercial carpet should be analyzed according to its construction, the type and frequency of traffic, the soiling conditions encountered, and other extenuating circumstances, such as occupant activities, structures design, and indoor air quality. Specialized maintenance and cleaning programs (e.g., weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannually) should be developed based on individual needs. Moreover, frequent cleaning of entrances and high-traffic areas reduces the contaminants and soil part-icles from outside the structure that accumulate in these areas. These tracked contaminants will affect indoor air quality if not adequately controlled.
Consumers must not wail until carpet looks soiled before cleaning. Significant soil accumulation at the base of the carpet fibers occurs long before it is visible at the fiber tips. Experts agree that clean carpet contributes not only to the overall aesthetics of a structure, but it plays a significant role in the healthfull state of the overall envir-onment in which people work, live and spend the majority of their time.
IV. Selecting a Professional Cleaning firm:
a.Professional cleaning firms will require all employees, managerial and technical, to engage in formal training in a variety of cleaning, disciplines, and these educational efforts will be ongoing. Consumers should ask about formal training backgrounds of technicians who will be cleaning their carpet.
b.Professional firms will require Certification of technicians through certifiying organizations such as the IICRC or through comparable franchise or independent training and testing organizations.
c.The years of experience a firm has (combined with formal training programs) contributes significantly to the experience and proficiency of the employees.
d.Professional firms will employ and train technicians who have the ability to answer basic questions regarding carpet performance and maintenance, as well as spotting and cleaning.
e.Professional firms may offer, or be associated with firms that offer, diversified fabric cleaning services such as re-pair, dedorization, and/or protection of carpet.
f.Consumers should ask for references from previous customers, and they should consult with friends and business acquaintances about the reputation of the cleaning firm they are considering. Never should the price of cleaning services be the sole selection criterion!
g.Professional cleaning firms will be members of regional and/or national trade associations or other organizations that promote high ethical standards and continuing education. Through these organizations, they will be exposed to continuing education in cleaning and related disciplines. Loot for trade association logos in advertising.
h.Community involvement through the Chamber of Commerce and/or professional business, charitable, or similar organizations will be under taken by concerned, caring professionals. Look for logos indicating involvement in these organizations, and never hesitate to call for references.
V. What Should Consumers Expect from a Professonal Cleaning Job?
a.Above all, technicians must be curteous. They must be willing to take time to preinspect carpet in all the areas that need cleaning. They must identify the carpet\'s con-struction and fiber, evaluate individual needs and re-commend an appropriate cleaning method or procedure. Carpet should be cleaned by trained, conscientious technicians, backed by good quality equipement, procedures, and reputable firms. The technician - not a particular method, machine or process - is the key to high quality results!
b.Consumers have a right to expect itemized services and firm prices before technicians begin each portion of the work sold. While technicians may off added services at additonal cost, consumers should never feel pressured to accept anything more than the services request and authorize.
c.All cleaning and specialty agents and equipment used before, during and after cleaning must be used in strict accordance with manufacturers recommendaions and appropriate safety regualtions.
d.Cleaning firms should off workmanship guarantees in writing. Fiber type, carpet construction, installation, and maintenance may present circumstances beyond a cleaning technician's control; however, responsible workmanship must be implicit in any work performed.
e.All carpet must be prevacuumed carefully before other cleaning techniques are employed, regardless of the method of cleaning used. Special emphasis should be placed on vacuuming major entry areas where soil accumulate.
f.Unless clearly specified otherwise, furniture moving to access and clean carpet underneath should be considered part of the normal cleaning job. Items such as fish tanks, waterbeds, loaded chine cabinets, computers, and extremely delicate or fragile furnishings (pianos, antiques) are considered exceptions.
g.Special attention to spots and stains must be included in normal job performance. However, time consuming specialized spotting of substantial quanities of spilled materials or prolonged effort on color added spots may incur an additional charge. Customers should be advised of additional charges before extensive spotting procedures are undertaken.
h.Special treatment with preconditioning agents in heavily soiled entry and traffic areas should be included in the cost of normal cleaning. However, overall job cost may increase in extreme soiling situations. Consumers should be advised of the need for such increased charges in advance.
i.With the consumer cooperaiton, the cleaner is responsible for ensuring that the carpet is dried and returned to normal use within a reasonable time frame. The amount of time required for drying will vary with different methods, the degree of soiling, and the aggressiveness of cleaning. However, under no circumstances should carpet drying require more than 24 hours with proper ventilation. Again, the consumer\'s coop-eration in providing continuous airflow and/or ventilation to expedite drying cannot be overemphasized.
j.Every effort must be made to physcally remove as much soil as possible from carpet during cleaning. Further, technicians must take steps to leave fibers as residue-free as possible to prevent accelerated resoiling.
VI. Principles of Professional Carpet Cleaning
Cleaning is the tradional activity of removing contaminants, pollutants, and undersired substances from an environment or surface to reduce damage or harm to human health or valuable materials. Cleaning is the process of locationg, identifying, containing, removing and properly disposing of unwanted substances from an environment of material.
Before standards for carpet cleaning methods can be designated , first specifying what one is attempting to accomplish with any professional cleaning system is necessary. The answer is "to remove substances that are foreign to the construction fo the carpet i.e., soil". However, to accomplish the end with any cleaning method, a criteria or standard outline that contains basic principles to which all methods must conform must be created, if the objective of soil removal from the carpet is to be accomplished. Thus, the following principles of cleaning have gained wide acceptance among professionals within the cleaning industry:
1.Dry Soil Removal (correlates to 3, 1,4,1,5,1,6,1, and 7,1, in Section G, Standard) - Professional carpet cleaners should have the ability to perform thorough dry soil removal with professional vaccum cleaning equipment. Professionals should have more powerful equipment, a better understanding of how and where soils build up in carpet, and the knowledge of how to remove maximum amounts of the dry particle soil with the techniques they employ.
Uhealthy particles, especially those that are respirable, are less than 10 microns in size. The smaller the size the more dangerous the particle, because it can penetrate deep into the lung. Biopollutants of all sizes also are of concern. Most vacuums can effectively remove particles as small as one micron in size; some specialized vacuuming technologies now available can remove particles that are submicron in size. the cleaning objective always should be to remove as many small particles and biopollutants as possible, not to redistribute them into the air.
Professional dry vacuuming procedures should include the following steps in accomplishing the goal of maximum dry soil removal prior to the application of techniques incorporating cleaning agents of any type:
a. Nap Preparation - This step should precede dry vacuuming, particularly when longer-napped carpet exhibits matting or "corn rowing" in entry, pivot and high traffice areas. Nap preparation is achieved with an appropriate brush, comb, or carpet groomer.
b. Physical Soil Removal through Dry Vacuuming - First, over all dry vacuuming of high-traffic and open areas is essential. An upright vacuum or pile lifter, which incorporateds high velocity sucion and nap agitation is specifically recommended. As with any home or commercial vacuum, professional vacuums employed in this critical step must collect soil that is removed from the carpet with a high-efficiency filtering system to prevent redistribution of fine particles into the air.
Second, professionals should consider the buildup of dust and fine particle soils that inevitably occurs around the edges and in the corners of rooms.
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