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Show Foot-born grime and dirt Tips on how to clean your carpet can do yourself with rented machines. The machines flush the carpet with cleaning solution delivered under pressure with water and steam. The resulting dirty water is then sucked out of the carpet with a wet vacuum. The rented water extraction equipment generally isnt as powerful power-ful as the professional, truck-mounted truck-mounted cleaners. This more powerful equipment can remove more water from the cleaned carpet and thus reduce the chances of water damage and mildew growth in the carpet backing. An advantage to this carpet 1 cleaning method is that it causes little damage because there is no brushing involved. This method ( should be avoided, however, for cleaning wool carpets. The hot water may shrink the carpet. If you decide to hire someone to clean your carpets with any of these four methods, Hawks suggests you inquire about the services included. Ask for a written cost estimate, how long the job will take (including drying time) and if the price includes in-cludes moving furniture. It's hard to decide which season brings more dirt into the house. Both summer and winter attract their share of foot-borne grime and both prompt you to ask ' ' what was the original color of this carpet anyway?' Once you decide to clean your carpet, you are faced with the decision deci-sion of how to clean it. According to Leona Hawks, Ex-Hnsion Ex-Hnsion housing and interiors specialist at Utah State University, there are only four basic carpet cleaning methods available: shampoo, sham-poo, chemical spray, dry absorbent compound and hot water extraction. Hawks explains the difference among the four methods: Shampoo: This is one of the oldest and least expensive carpet cleaning methods. The shampoo is applied and worked into the carpet either by hand or with the help of a machine. When the shampoo dries, it is removed with a vacuum cleaner. The drawbacks to shampooing are that it is time consuming, it cleans only the surface and it may leave a residue on the carpet. An added danger is that the rotary brushes used to work the shampoo into the carpet may damage the carpet's pile. Chemical sprays: This method is only effective for cleaning the carpet surface. A cleaning chemical is sprayed on, and then the surface soil is removed with absorbent discs. The machine generally does not damage the carpet pile. Dry absorbent: This is another surface cleaning method. The cleaning clean-ing compound usually consists of a mixture of cleaning solvents, detergents de-tergents and absorbent particles. The compound is worked into the carpet by hand or machine, left to dry for a short time and then vacuumed vac-uumed out of the carpet. Hot water extraction or steam cleaning: There are many variations of this method, some of which you |