Cleaning Braided Rugs From Kennays Carpet Care’s Facebook:

Who’s afraid of cleaning braided rugs? Kennay isn’t because he cleans with PCA™ Formula 5 powdered extraction carpet cleaning agent with Booster™ using Bane-Clene truck-mounted equipment.

Below are before and after photos of some of recent work by Kennays. ALL professional carpet cleaners should follow his example by taking before and after photos of work done!

Area Rugs - A Strong Profit Center for Changing and Challenging Times

The demand for cleaning area rugs and oriental rugs, either on location or in-plant, continues to grow. Large expensive oriental rugs are often found on wall-to-wall carpet in homes and executive suites. Hard surfaced floors nearly always are covered with expensive area rugs. With the growth of wood floors, area rugs are increasingly popular.

Area rug cleaning can be extremely profitable, especially if pick-up and delivery is included in the service. Customers gladly pay extra for the convenience of having their area rugs picked up and delivered. A box truck is best for pick-up and delivery of rugs and furniture, however, a rack on the top of a cleaning van or an inside arrangement along one wall will accommodate most rugs. In below image, a cleaned rug is being loaded into our delivery truck to be returned to the customer.

Image of cleaned area rug being loaded into truck to be returned to customer

Area rugs can be cleaned on location or in the plant. Plant cleaning has some advantages, especially if a rug is problematic and may require additional treatment after drying. Other pieces can be cleaned and treated without a loss of time.

Having area rugs to clean in-plant has an added advantage since they provide a ready source of work for crews returning early. Bane-Clene’s rug plant has ten steel reinforced poles, twenty feet in length. They are equipped with stainless steel pins to prevent slippage of heavy rugs. The entire operation, which includes an electric winch system, takes up only 600 sq. ft. of floor space including the storage racks for finished rugs.

Some customers prefer bringing smaller rugs to the plant. An orderly check-in procedure will make a customer feel welcome and a discount for their trouble is always appreciated. Perforated call tags are necessary for an efficient system and a strict policy should be posted about unclaimed rugs.

Braided rugs are constructed of wool fabric, heavy wool rug yarn, or other materials, including olefin. Individual lengths of braid or a continuous braid may be stitched or laced together into the desired shape. All braids have a core, which is an inner material that gives the braid shape and consistency. During cleaning, this core, if made of paper or dyed waste material, can easily bleed to the surface! Paper, foam, textile byproduct, or waste materials are often used for the core of low quality rugs.

Cleaning area rugs in the customer’s house or in your plant is not much different from cleaning carpet, except that the flooring material under the area rug must be protected and pre-inspection and pretesting are critical.

First, before starting to clean any rug, inspect the rug very carefully and note any damage anywhere on the rug and have the customer sign off on such damage.

Be sure to inspect the back as well as the face - spots and stains often are more obvious on the back!

Watch out for ink stenciling in hooked rugs - which can usually be observed on the back or by bending the rug to “grin” open the rows of loops so that you can see the foundation into which the loops are hooked. If you see ink on the white foundation, you have a strong potential for the ink to bleed. This is especially common with some motifs and medallions as well as along the border.

Dye bleed on rug from pet urine Watch out for dye bleed from pet urine

Red Kool-Aid stain on rug Check for any dye stains on the rug before proceeding.

Damaged rug fringe Check the fringe for damage. Also, check if the fringe is dyed - don’t use peroxide on dyed fringe!

Pre-vacuum all area rugs - both sides. After vacuuming, if cleaning over a carpet or wood, place a furniture blanket under each end of the rug being cleaned, including the fringe. Place brown paper under and along each long side of the area rug.

Never clean a rug on top of other carpet - transfer of color to the carpet can occur.

As with upholstery, ALWAYS pretest for dye stability. Apply the prespray and detergent to a white towel, rub a dark area that might bleed, wait at least 15 minutes and repeat. If the dye bleeds, try a lower pH detergent, such as LCA 256^®. If cotton, test with Natural Fiber Cleaner. If it still bleeds, you may need to “shampoo” the rug with Chemspec Oriental Rug Shampoo. If it still bleeds, the rug can only be dry-cleaned. For mild bleeding, simply apply Brown Out to the rug prior to cleaning.

If it is a cotton rug or a rug that readily browns, clean with Natural Fiber Cleaner at 1 ounce per gallon in a well-ventilated area. Natural Fiber Cleaner contains sodium bisulfite, a reducing bleach, and detergents.

NOTE: If the rug is silk, don’t wet clean it! Silk should only be dry cleaned because of the risks of yellowing, dye loss, ringing, and physical damage (silk loses about 20% of its strength when wet). Some silk is “washable silk”, which has been modified to be washable.

If the rug is rayon, wet clean VERY cautiously! Rayon loses 50-70% of its strength when wet and rayon rugs frequently bleed severely. Pre-test for dye stability. Because of its poor durability, high absorbency, poor dimensional stability, tendency to fade and its tendency to strongly shrink, rayon is a very poor choice for rug fiber. Rayon is easily damaged by spotters containing alcohol, such as APS™ All Purpose Spotter. Also, remember that “art silk” is actually rayon!

Use caution when using proteolytic enzyme spotters or deodorizers on wool - they are designed to attack proteins and wool is a protein.

Dry time is critical. Therefore, an absolute minimum of moisture should be used and a blower should be used after cleaning. It is very important that the rug be dried in 48 hours or less to prevent mold and mildew formation.

Pre-dampen the fringes with your cleaning solution and then apply diluted Preface^® (if the dye stability test was okay). Use a Handi Groom^® to ensure thorough coverage of all fringe fibers, and also use the brush to comb the fringe neatly away from the rug face. Fringe is usually white cotton and grays severely.

Pretreat or remove any existing spots on the rug that may pose a problem while cleaning.

After cleaning the carpet fibers, clean the fringes - pulling the fringe away from the rug to clean it with the furniture pad underneath. There are two problems that may occur with the fringes: browning and dye bleeding onto the fringes.

After the cleaning has been completed, remove the furniture pads and replace with waxed paper. This will aid in the drying of the fringe. Brush out the fringe edges.

We recommend hanging the rugs on a rug rack for faster drying.

Apply Brown Out at 8 ounces per gallon to the rug - very lightly just to the surface.

If the fringes are still very gray, apply 40 volume clear hydrogen peroxide to the fringes only on fringes of oriental rugs or stubborn browning on undyed carpet. Comb the peroxide into the fringes with a Handi Groom and allow to dry.

NOTE: On some tribal rugs, the dark appearance of the fringe is the natural color of the goat hair that is sometimes blended with the wool and is not discoloration or browning. In that case, do not use a bleaching agent. Also, silk rugs may have silk foundation yarns and silk fringes also should never be bleached. If you hang up the rugs to dry, you are more likely to have browned fringes because all the water and residue will migrate to the ends.

Herbal treated, tea washed rug Additionally, bleaching agents should never be used on tea washed rugs. Tea washed, herbal treated or antiqued rugs have been soaked in a tea solution to “age” them. Unfortunately, this treatment can sometimes come off with just water. Check dye stability with a white towel dampened with your cleaning solution. DO NOT treat the fringes of such rugs with a bleaching agent!

If the rug is wool and some moth damage has occurred, apply Steri-Fab^®.

Apply Sta-Clene^® protector as the final step. Use a Grandi Groom^® or Grandi-Brush^® to set the rug nap.

If working in the customer’s home, remove any traffic lane paper that is saturated from the cleaning head overspray. Wet paper left under the rug could cause damage to a wood floor. Allow to dry without moving the rug - preferably using air movers. Dry time is critical to avoid bleeding and browning.

If, in spite of your best efforts, the rug severely browns, do a Brown Out flush on the rug and allow it to dry upside down. This moves the browning to the back of the rug.

What can go wrong in cleaning rugs? Browning, shrinkage, edge puckering, and dye bleeding are the most common problems. Additionally, some hand-made rugs will simply fall apart when wet! Use EXTREME caution cleaning cloth backed rugs, as found on some Indian and Chinese tufted rugs - shrinkage and edge puckering are major problems!

For stain removal on rugs, click Wool and silk rug stain removal procedures.

Related Rug Care Products (Links Open to the Bane-Clene Store in Separate Windows):

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