Considerations For Carpet Cleaning Traffic Lanes

What are Carpet Traffic Lanes?

Traffic lanes are the areas in a home or business where people repeatedly walk the most. Hallways, doorways and pathways around furniture see more walking traffic. Less used rooms or areas, under furniture and other less traveled places see less wear and tear.

carpet cleaning traffic lanes on stairs
agitating carpet with counter rotating brush for a deep scrub

Traffic Lane Carpet Cleaning Considerations

Traffic lanes see a greater amount of foot traffic. Consequently, they both collect dirt and wear out faster. Because of this, professional carpet cleaning companies typically have special considerations for cleaning the high traffic areas in a home or business.

  • Higher strength or concentration pre-sprays may be applied for more cleaning power.
  • Agitation should be used, preferably with a machine like a counter rotating brush, to provide deep scrubbing and soil removal.
  • Carpet pile should be lifted and set both via agitation (or a pile lifter) as well as with a carpet grooming after the job has been completed.

Dry Soil Damages Carpets

Many people don’t realize that dry soil, repeatedly ground into carpet through foot traffic, further accelerates wear.

Not vacuuming frequently as well as not professionally cleaning carpets on a recommended basis can lead to the prematurely wearing out. Carpet manufacturers typically recommend a 12-18 month interval for professional carpet cleaning. Failing to to this can lead to carpet prematurely wearing out. Then, it may need to be replaced sooner than if it had been properly maintained.

Commercial Traffic Lane Carpet Cleaners

When designing an ongoing commercial carpet maintenance plan, many times it makes more sense to alternate full carpet cleanings with traffic lane cleanings. Areas like hallways, the pathway to a breakroom, and conference rooms see more foot traffic and soiling. Alternating cleanings of all areas vs. just the traffic areas saves costs while still doing a great job.

Another option for commercial traffic lane cleaners is to use encapsulation cleaning for commercial maintenance alternated with the thorough deep cleaning or hot water extraction. This keeps the carpet looking good, helps remove damaging dry soil, and adds longevity on to the expensive carpet investment.

Encapsulation is a different carpet cleaning method that does not clean as deeply as hot water extraction, but still does a good job at a lower cost.

heavily soiled carpet being cleaned

Worn Out or Dirty Traffic Lanes?

Many times our customers want to know whether dark traffic lanes can be cleaned, or not. The answer is “it depends”. If the cause of the darkened area is dirt, soil and mud, then yes, a thorough cleaning should return the carpet to a uniform appearance.

Narrow Traffic Lanes Accelerate Wear

On the other hand, if traffic lanes have been repeatedly traveled through a narrow area for years and years, if shoes are worn in the area, or the area has not been frequently cleaned, darkened traffic lanes may be more permanent. They’ll almost always improve significantly with a thorough cleaning. However, they may still be visible.

Worn Out Damaged Carpet

Often this is due to worn down carpet and/or burst and unraveling carpet fibers instead of what may appear to be soiled areas. When this happens, light refracting off the carpet fibers can provide a contrasting appearance to the adjacent carpet fibers, such that they appear darker.

MSS Cleaning employee vacuuming carpet in home

How Can I Avoid Dark Traffic Lanes

The most important way to avoid visible traffic lanes in carpet is to keep the carpets properly maintained. Vacuum the carpet regularly. Avoid walking on the carpet with shoes if possible.

Professional Carpet Maintenance

Get the carpet professionally cleaned per the manufacturer’s recommended cleaning schedule. More often if you have pets and/or kids or heavy traffic sources. Following these tips will help your carpets look better, longer. Here are the carpet cleaning frequency guidelines one of the largest carpet manufacturers, Shaw,

Eventually Dark Traffic Lanes Will Occur Regardless

Like all textiles, even with proper maintenance, carpet has a useful life and will eventually wear out. Following the tips in this article will certainly prolong the life of the carpet, but it will still wear out some day.

Traffic lanes will be the first places to show significant wear. Once it’s worn out, there really is nothing that can be done to fully change the darkened appearance.

Better Quality Carpets Last Longer

For cheaper carpets, wear can occur as early as 8-10 years, while higher quality carpets like nylon or newer higher quality polyester carpets can last over 15 years and top quality carpet fibers like wool carpet can regularly last longer than 20 or 25 years. Commercial carpet can wear out even quicker.

The Best Denver Area Carpet Cleaning Company For Traffic Lanes

For help with cleaning and restoring traffic lanes, call the Denver carpet cleaning experts at MSS Cleaning. We can discuss how we design custom plans for keeping your carpet, whether commercial or residential, looking its absolute best. We offer carpet cleaning throughout the Denver area. From carpet cleaning in Castle Rock to Boulder, Thornton, and beyond.

Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

Why Does a Carpet Stain Keep Coming Back?

Causes of Reappearing Carpet Stains and How to Deal With Them

If you’re reading this, you’re already probably frustrated with that carpet spot you’ve been working on but the carpet stain keeps coming back. As a professional carpet cleaning company, we understand your frustrations. Sometimes even for the pros, as much as we hate to admit it, a carpet stain keeps coming back.

carpet stain that keeps coming back

The Carpet Pad is Often The Problem

Almost always, the answer to this problem lies not in the carpet itself, but in the carpet pad. Carpet pads are kind of like a big sponge. They are typically a porous foam material.

The structure of carpet is such that fibers are effectively glued onto a carpet backing during manufacture. This leaves plenty of porous holes where liquid (or oil or grease) can seep through.

When a substance penetrates through the carpet fibers and the backing and then into the carpet pad, the “big sponge” traps the substance in it, and beneath it.

Usually this problem is more common when there is a large amount of something spilled. For example dog urine, dropping a full cup of coffee, a plate of greasy chicken wings, and so on.

Wicking From the Carpet Pad

When an effort is made to clean up whatever caused the spill, there may be initial success in getting the spot to lift. However, as it dries, the carpet fibers wick the staining substance back into them. Soon, what looked like a successful spot clean up, is back to looking terrible.

What’s the Solution to Carpet Spots That Keep Coming Back?

Once again, the answer lies in the carpet pad. If you can’t get the spilled substance out of the carpet pad, the spot is never going to go away. Most of the time, if you have a spot that keeps coming back, it’s time to call in the pros.

Three Professional Options

The answer to the problem lies deeper than your home spot cleaner is going to be able to clean. There are three professional level options to deal with reappearing spots and stains.

Professional Carpet Cleaning to Remove a Spot That Keeps Coming Back

Carpet cleaning reoccurring spots is typically where we start. Sometimes a good thorough cleaning will provide enough “oomph” to get the spot out. We can then apply a product called an encapsulant that will seal any remaining stain from coming back up through the carpet backing into the fibers.

Sealing in the Spot

For something that doesn’t have an odor, sealing in the spot with an encapsulant after cleaning can be a viable option. On rare occasions, we do get called back to a customer’s property when the stain reappears the next day, however.

carpet cleaning dirty stairs in Denver
Using a flood extractor to remove stubborn reappearing carpet stains wicking up from the carpet pad

Carpet Flooding to Solve a Reappearing Spot

I know what you’re thinking… I don’t mean an actual flood. What we refer to as “flooding” means that we take a bucket of solution and apply it to the stain. This has to be specific to what we’re trying to remove.

Pet urine carpet cleaning, for example, requires a different solution than a spilled tray of greasy chicken wings. The idea here is that we want to fully saturate the spot with something that will break it down.

For the chicken wing example, that’s probably a powerful citrus-based degreaser. For pet urine, it’s going to be a pet specific product that neutralizes odors and eliminates color.

Break Out The Flood Extractor

Once this solution has gone to work for an adequate period of time, we use a flood water extractor (just like we’d use on soaked carpet) to extract the water, cleaning solution, and whatever is left of the stain.

Carpet Pad Replacement

For the worst carpet stains that keep coming back no matter what you try, we usually opt to replace a piece of the carpet pad. For this carpet repair to be done, we’ll first pull back the carpet and clean it while it’s not pressed against the pad.

Next, we’ll cut out the affected area. Sometimes it’s also necessary to seal the subfloor with a special paint. Normally subfloor sealing is only needed for things like pet urine removal, with cat urine being the number one perpetrator.

Finally, we replace the piece of padding we cut out with a similar piece with the same density and thickness and we reinstall the carpet. Lastly, we stretch the carpet back into place.

Before, during and after carpet cleaning and carpet pad replacement to treat difficult carpet stains that keep coming back

Resoiling

Another potential cause of a carpet stain coming back is residue that has been left in the carpet. There are many kinds of residue. For example, a low cost, low quality carpet cleaning company may only rinse the carpet with water, leaving behind a soapy residue that attracts soil.

Another case may be if you used over the counter carpet cleaning spray and didn’t thoroughly rinse it.

A more fringe case, but one we still run into, is where people read online that using WD-40 on their carpets is a good idea. Yes, it is a solvent. It will break down some spots, like removing slime from carpet. However it leaves mineral oil behind in your carpet that turns into a dirt magnet.

This can make it look like the stain reappeared and make you feel like the stain keeps coming back when it’s actually a “fresh” stain attaching to residue left in the carpet.

carpet cleaning traffic lanes in a bedroom

Traffic Patterns: The Reappearing Stain May Not Be a Stain at All

It’s always a disappointment to customers when we have to inform them that what appears to be a stain is actually permanent damage to their carpet caused by wear and tear. Worn out carpet can often have the appearance of looking “dirty”.

Traffic lanes are the places in your home or business that get walked on over and over. Hallways, turns around a couch in the living room, or the spot your feet land when you sit down in your favorite arm chair to watch TV every night for 5-10 years.

Traffic Patterns May Be Dirty As Well

These spots may actually be dirty as well, and will clean up to some extent, however the only cure to create new looking carpet in these spots is to either patch the carpet (which can be tricky trying to patch new carpet into old carpet), or replace the whole carpet to achieve a uniform look.

Sometimes during a professional carpet cleaning (or even a DIY carpet cleaning), when the carpet is wet, it will look like the problem has been solved. Once it dries, though, there are those pesky traffic lanes again.

Need Help Getting Rid of Spots That Keep Coming Back?

If you are in or around Denver and need professional assistance getting rid of those stubborn reappearing carpet stains, give us a call. We’ve tackled just about every kind of stain you can think of. Even those rare stains that can’t be removed can be patched with a different piece of carpet. Regardless of your carpet cleaning or carpet repair needs, trust the pros at MSS Cleaning.

Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

Nylon vs Polyester Carpet – Which is Best?

Nylon and Polyester Carpet Comparison

When buying new carpet, there are plenty of choices. Almost all carpets sold these days are synthetic carpet. Choosing between Nylon vs. polyester carpet, two of the most commonly chosen carpet fibers, can be tough.

There are plenty of other choices too. Wool, Triexta (PTT), Olefin and even some more exotic and natural fibers like Silk and Cotton exist. However, in this article, we will examine the pros and cons of Nylon vs. Polyester carpet. This is simply due to their popularity and general availability, as well as their generally modest cost.

Polyester Carpet

Overview

Polyester carpet has come a long way from it’s early days. Approximately 25% of carpet sold is polyester. It can be a quality carpet choice that provides many years of useful life.

While generally it’s not considered to be as durable as nylon carpet, modern, higher end polyesters do just fine. A cousin to polyester is Triexta (PTT). Triexta is a close contender to nylon in terms of durability and crush resistance. It’s also derived from corn, so it can be a more eco-friendly option.

Lower Cost

Perhaps the biggest benefit of polyester carpet is that it’s generally less expensive than nylon carpet. This is primarily because it’s often made from recycled materials. Those old plastic Coke bottles you threw away could be beneath your feet right now!

Stain Resistant and Minimally Absorbent

Polyester carpet is also typically solution dyed. Solution dyeing makes it quite stain resistant and also mostly non-absorbent. Polyester fibers are hydrophobic, meaning the fiber repels liquid on its own.

It’s typically further treated with stain resisting properties too. These characteristics help explain why polyester carpet is a popular choice for commercial carpet applications.

It’s also a popular choice for rentals, apartments, and less expensive new-build homes. We don’t mean to downplay, however, the quality, softness and general durability of higher end polyester carpets.

Polyester carpet in cream color
orange and white patterned nylon carpet

Nylon Carpet

Overview

Nylon is the most popular synthetic fiber carpet on the market today for residential carpets. Nearly 50% of carpet is nylon fiber. It’s also popular for some commercial carpet applications.

Nylon tends to be more expensive than polyester, but it’s also regarded are more durable and longer lasting.

There have been many generations of nylon carpet. Each iteration has improved stain resistance, appearance, reflectiveness of light and so on. The most modern generations of nylon carpet look great, feel great and offer significant long term durability.

Higher Cost but Higher Durability and Resilience

Nylon carpet does cost more versus polyester carpet but it’s generally considered to be more durable and longer lasting. It also reflects light and can be shaped different ways to make soil less visible. Nylon can be dyed for nice color and patterns. It also cleans up well.

Generally Good Stain Resistance

On the whole, nylon carpet cleans up easily and is resistant to many stains. Some stains, however, pose an issue. During the construction of nylon carpet, acid dyes are used to provide color and pigment.

This is an effective process that results in a great appearance. However, there is a downside. Liquids like coffee, tea, wine, sodas and things like Koolaid are also acid dyes.

In earlier iterations of nylon carpet, this made stains harder to remove. The current iterations come with an acid dye resistor. This fills any open dye sites and dramatically improves the stain resistance of the carpet.

Applying a carpet protector to nylon carpets to keep up their stain resistance.

Nylon vs. Polyester Carpet Summary

As you can see, there are pros and cons with choosing either nylon or polyester carpet. Neither is going to be a bad choice in their current iterations.

Nylon carpet outperforms polyester carpet on durability. Polyester outperforms nylon on stain resistance and its generally less expensive as well. Both offer a nice looking appearance and they both are soft and comfortable to the touch.

Either carpet can be made from recycled fibers and they are both generally recyclable at the end of their life. The specifics of whether each nylon carpet or polyester carpet can be recyclable should be asked of the salesperson. With all the variations of carpet types and brands available, its best to ask questions in the carpet store.

There are a wide variety of options in both carpet types. You should go to the carpet store to settle the nylon vs. polyester carpet debate for yourself.

We recommend that you go experience some carpet types at a store. Discuss the options with a salesperson. Feel and look at each carpet type. Then you will know which is best for you.

The good news is there are certainly fewer “bad” options than there used to be.

 

We Clean Both Nylon and Polyester Carpet

If you need carpet cleaning in Denver, CO or surrounding towns like Littleton or Castle Rock give us a call. We professionally clean all carpet types including polyester and nylon and we’d love to help you with your project.

It doesn’t have to be a nylon or polyester carpet. We also can help with wool carpet, triexta, olefin, or anything else you can throw at us. Let us know, we’d love to chat with you about your project.

Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

How to Get Coffee Stains Out of Carpet

How to Get Coffee Stains Out of Carpet

Safely and Effectively Remove Coffee Stains From Your Carpet

How to Get Coffee Out of Your Carpet

Coffee is great for a morning pick me up. However, it’s not so great for clean looking carpets. If you’re like most people, at some point you’re going to spill some coffee on your carpet.

Then you’re faced with a situation where you need to know how to get coffee stains out of carpet. The good news is we’re here to help you with that.

Among the various things spilled on carpets, coffee presents plenty of carpet cleaning challenges. So, if you’ve found this page, you probably need to know how to remove coffee stains from carpet.

Clean up Coffee Stains Quickly!

Like most stains, efforts to remove coffee stains from carpet are best done when the coffee has been recently spilled. Fresh spots are easier to remove than dried set in stains that have been there for months.

Trying to remove old coffee stains from carpet is always going to be harder than removing them when they are fresh.

Coffee Stain on Carpet

A Note on Carpet Protection and Coffee Stains

While this may be too late now that you have a coffee stain on your carpet, it’s good to know for the future. Carpets come from the factory these days with pre-applied carpet protectant. This is usually good for 12-18 months before it needs to be reapplied.

Most people know the name Scotchgard, but in our opinion better options exist. Teflon products like Maxim Advanced work great. These protectants cause liquids to bead up instead of penetrate the dye sites.

Applying Carpet Protection Makes Stain Cleanup Easier

Applying carpet protection typically allows for much easier clean up, especially for acidic solutions (hint: coffee stains). As an added bonus, other dry and wet soils are easier to clean up as well.

Whether for protection against coffee stains, or otherwise, professionally applying carpet protection to your carpets is a good idea.

How to Remove Coffee Stains – Dish Detergent and Vinegar

Step 1: If the coffee stain is fresh, try and absorb as much of the coffee as you can with a dry rag, towel, or paper towel.

Step 2: Mix up about a tablespoon of dish detergent, a tablespoon of vinegar and 2 cups of warm water in a bowl.

Step 3: Dip a white rag or cloth into the bowl of solution until it’s saturated. Liberally dab the solution onto the stain, working from the outside of the stain to the middle. Rinse the cloth periodically in the bowl of solution. Remember, don’t scrub the carpet, instead blot it. Scrubbing risks damaging the carpet fibers or pulling fibers out of the backing.

Step 4: Rinse the area with warm water and use a wet vac, if you have one, to suck up the solution. If you don’t have a wet vac, use a different dry towel and use it to absorb as much of the rinse water as possible. Repeat this step a few times with the goal of getting as much solution and coffee laden rinse water out of the carpet.

Bottle of Dawn dish soap

What Happens if the Coffee Stain Reappears?

Normally when a coffee stain resurfaces after you have cleaned the area, it means that the coffee stain went past the carpet. It’s gone deeper and really saturated the carpet pad. When this occurs, you likely need to get a professional carpet cleaning.

Here’s why: Carpet pad does a nice job of keeping the carpet feeling comfortable to walk on. However, the foam material it’s made of is also quite absorbent. Kind of like a sponge. Liquid spills, like coffee, that get past the carpet, hit the top layer of the carpet pad and then soak in over a large area

coffee stain on carpet backing

Its What Lies Beneath The Carpet That Matters Here

On top, it looks like a small spill, but below it can be much larger. With pet urine stains, for example, a 6 inch visible ring on the top of the carpet often is 18-24 inches on the pad once you lift back the carpet to have a look beneath it.

A professional is going to have FAR stronger, specialized carpet cleaning equipment than what you can find at the store. They will be better equipped to remove coffee stains from carpet that are too hard to clean yourself. That carpet cleaning equipment has massively stronger vacuums than even the most powerful shop vacs.

They’ll have more effective solutions than you can buy in the store, and they’ll have specialized sprayers and tools to flood the areas for complete cleaning, while still allowing for effective drying so your carpet isn’t left soaking.

Still Having Trouble Getting Coffee Out of Your Carpet?

If you’ve tried out recommended solution to remove the coffee stain from your carpet but it still won’t budge, it’s probably time to call the professionals. We provide both residential and commercial carpet cleaning in Denver as well as carpet cleaning in Highlands Ranch, Littleton and throughout the entire Denver area.

We’d be happy to tackle that coffee stain for you.

Dry Carpet Cleaning vs. Hot Water Extraction Carpet Cleaning Denver

Dry carpet cleaning versus hot water extraction carpet cleaning in denver

Dry Carpet Cleaning vs. Steam Cleaning in Denver

Recently we’ve heard a lot of marketing hype about dry carpet cleaning vs. hot water extraction and how dry carpet cleaning has faster dry times. It’s true, “dry” carpet cleaning actually leads to faster dry times.

Does it lead to a superior carpet cleaning? Unfortunately not. Have a look at the photo above.

This was a recent job we did where there were grease spots and heavy soiling on the carpet. Using our trusty Brush Pro machine (the finest counter rotating brush machine available), we used encapsulation to dry clean the carpets. This is the same process used by a lot of the “dry cleaning” companies, only our brush machine is nicer than theirs is.

After we dry cleaned the carpets, we did a follow up cleaning with hot water extraction (steam cleaning) to see what kind of improvement we could create. I think the images speak for themselves.

Dry Carpet Cleaning Dry Times

So, the marketing hype around dry carpet cleaning will tell you that your carpets dry within 30 minutes. The question we have to ask is “who cares!?”.

Don’t you care more about getting your carpets to be actually clean? To do a better job removing spots and stains? Are we crazy for thinking that it’s more important to actually clean your carpets than it is to be able to lie on them a half hour after cleaning?

Are we alone in that we don’t have this vision that as soon as the carpets get cleaned, we should immediately lie down and roll around on them? Nobody does this!  We are a carpet cleaning company and chances are we’re probably more passionate about clean carpets than you are.

Even so, we’d be willing to bet that you’ve spent less than .01% of your life lying on carpets. Though the marketing images you see probably dictate otherwise, you probably don’t spend much time lying on your carpet.

We also are willing to bet you’re probably alright with waiting 2-4 hours to satiate that unquenchable urge to do some carpet lying. Right?

Walking on Carpets After Carpet Steam Cleaning

But wait, what about walking on the carpets after they are cleaned? Isn’t that going to be a problem? No! Walk around in clean sneakers, a pair of house slippers, bare feet, or whatever seems to work for you.

What about all those toxic chemicals carpet cleaners use!? We don’t know what the “other guys” are using, but our solutions are kid and pet friendly, non-toxic, and certainly fine for your feet.

Lions and Tigers and MOLD! Oh My!

Don’t let them scare you. Hot water extraction, done properly, isn’t going to result in mold, mildew, or anything of the sort. The only time this could be a risk if you hire someone who has no idea what they are doing. If you flood anything with water and you don’t suck it back up, you’re going to have problems.

However, if the machine is set properly and the operator knows what he/she is doing, applying hot water and solution and extracting it will provide both the best carpet cleaning available and it will be done safely.

At MSS Cleaning, we are an IICRC certified firm with IICRC certified technicians. We do over 1,000 jobs a year, and we’ve never once had a single mention of mold, mildew, or anything of the sort after we clean carpets in a home or business. More marketing scare tactics.

The Bottom Line on Carpet Cleaning Services

Dry carpet cleaning is an inferior service that was originally designed as a carpet maintenance solution for commercial areas. Over time, dry carpet cleaning has become a hot new marketing buzz word and scare tactic.

If you want your home or business carpet’s cleaned the best way possible, that way is going to be hot water extraction. At MSS Cleaning, we provide the best carpet cleaning in Denver, plain and simple.

We don’t need marketing gimmicks to sell our services, we instead prefer to let our services speak for themselves.

Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

Why Your Office Needs Carpet Cleaning Services

When it comes to running a business, you need to keep costs as low as possible to still turn a profit. However, there are some tasks you should never neglect, and commercial carpet cleaning is one of them. We provide professional carpet cleaning in Denver, and surrounding areas for businesses and offices.

Check out these top reasons why your office needs carpet cleaning and the great benefits you will gain when you schedule carpet cleaning with our team.

1. Keeping Up Appearances

If your workplace looks dingy, dirty, and neglected, you will wind up portraying that attitude to your employees. People spend a large portion of their life at their jobs, so it is no wonder that they want to work in a place that reflects a thriving company culture.

When your carpets are dirty and stained, your employees can wind up feeling like you don’t care about the place, and worse, them.

Boost company morale by having your carpets periodically cleaned. Schedule professional commercial carpet cleaning services during hours that won’t interrupt work, but will leave your employees feeling their workplace is valued.

2. Lowering Allergens

No one wants to go to work and spend the entire day sneezing and coughing. However, when you neglect carpet cleaning in your office, you can wind up building up allergens in the office. This can lead to your employees being uncomfortable, having asthma flare ups, and becoming ill more frequently.

Although vacuuming can help cut down on this issue, vacuuming alone will not get rid of the deeply embedded dirt and allergens. The good news is that carpet cleaning will remove hard to reach allergens, germs, and viruses from your carpets fibers. This will leave your office smelling great and your employees breathing easy.

3. Protecting Your Investment

While you may contemplate putting off professional carpet cleaning due to the cost, the reality is you could cost yourself more money down the road by doing so.

When your carpets are dirty and grime builds up in the fibers, you can cause irreversible damage to the fibers. This means you will have to invest in brand new carpeting, which is far more expensive than simply keeping up with cleaning services.

How often should you clean your business’ carpets? This will depend a lot on how much foot traffic you have, what kind of foot traffic, and the type of business you are operating. Talk to our team about the frequency with which you should have your office carpet cleaned.

If you want to improve the look of your business, protect your carpeting, and keep your employees happy and healthy, talk to us about scheduling professional carpet cleaning services. We can work around your business’ operational hours to ensure your office can continue to function smoothly.

Our team is comprised of extremely professional technicians who are equipped to handle office spaces of all sizes. Contact us today for an estimate and schedule your carpet cleaning in Denver and the surrounding areas.

Or Call: 1-720-233-0761