Carpet Cleaning appliances

[Jeff Smith]

Well, today I had my first major spill in my truck. Nice big extra large Coffee with plenty of Sugar and Creamer. Oh Boy what a mess. Missed the leather seats and went straight to the floor. Nice Beige carpet with coffee everywhere.

Fotunately I was not far from the house so hurried home and broke out the APC with about a dozen Hand Towels. I seem to have done OK. I used the Interior Brush to work the APC in pretty well then vigorously rubbed the towels over things to soak up the residual stuff. I think I did OK, At least from looking at the surface of the carpet. But I kow there is still stuff down deep that I can't get to. I did run over it with the Shop Vac but did not see anything in the tank when done.

Anyway, while confronting this minor X-Mas catastrophy, it got me to thinking about some sort of Extractor.

I have had a couple of cheap carpet shampooers in the past but they generally have not had any sort of attachments that worked. Just the mainhead itself.

I was wondering if anyone has seen any sort of decent, well made extractor that had a little bit of versatility in the choice of tools provided with it. I am not Pro so really don't need a professinal machine but would like to invest in something that is recommended by others as both versatile and is well made.

If anyone can recommend anything like this I'd certainly appreciate it.

[gb387]

I have a Hoover Steam Vac.... Mainly use it in the house but it has car a attachment and a hose. Works good, it may take a couple passes to **** all the water out but it works.... may not be a pro system but its all I need.


Similar to this:

[kpagel]

A lot of people have used with pretty good success (myself included) the Bissel Little Green Clean Machine. I have the heated model. It was recently discontinued and replaced by the new Bissel Spot Bot. If you can still find a Little Green Clean Machine in stores, you should be able to find them heavily discounted. I found mine for $45 at Best Buy, normal price was $90.

[nick1897]

Jeff, try this. I'm going to consider this one after a little shopping around locally.

*edit, the link doesn't seem to work.. go to ebay and enter in this item number..

4428688084


*note it is refurbished, but this guy has a 100% feedback with 6400 items sold..


Marry X-Mas!

[Shiny Lil Detlr]

The LGCM is good, but make sure of two things:

1) Only use Bissel's formula in it

and

2) Make sure to clean it up REALLY well after each use.

I burned up two of mine by trying to use a different formula (Meg's APC+, and/or Woolite/Oxiclean) and because of not rinsing clear water through the solution delivery hoses after every use.

Another thing I'd recommend (I don't know if you may have already done this) is to ScotchGard your carpets once you're sure everything is clean. That will help to prevent you having as much difficulty with future clean-up operations.

You may also find it easier to just pull the seats when you have a major spill like this. I've had the seats out of my truck twice because of something spilling and flowing under them.

Good luck either way, Jeff.

[genes]

Carpets and cleaning interiors has become a main focus for me in the past few months. I figure it is the main area my customers will notice in their daily driving. I have taken a carpet cleaning tech class to understand the rugs and cleaning better. I am going to a leather/vinyl tech class soon also. All this said these are my thoughts on spilled coffee.

I once had a woman bring a car to me with a newly spilled mocha in the passengers floorboard. I had no idea and used my new "dry" vacuum on her rug. I couldn't understand why my vacuum was spitting cocao everywhere. I wasn't to happy about that little misunderstanding.

Coffee spilled on a carpet will also wet the "matting" under the rug. If you spilled alot or didn't get it soaked up in time the wetness will still be there. If that area darkens over a short time then the remaining coffee is leaching through the carpet. Your local carpet cleaning supplier will have a spotting solution to help with the coffee stain. You will have to use your wet vac to try and **** up the residual wetness under your spill area.

I am going to make a seperate post in the future but this is the short of what I am going to write. I wanted to get a carpet extractor but I didn't want to spend alot of money. I called all the carpet cleaners in my area to see if anyone has a used carpet extractor they would like to sell. I got one, new $1900, from a guy for $200. The heater had shorted out and he didn't have time to get it fixed. I took the heater out, rerouted the hoses, and now I am in business. Soon I will post my rug cleaning experiences with this set-up and pass along what I see. I hope this helps.

[jetta18T]

I'm also possibly considering an extractor, but not quite sure if I want to drop about $700 for the durrmaid or aztec, as opposed to having the LGCM for around $90. I've heard great things about the extractors, but as for now the money is mainly what's been holding me back the most. I also would like to find some sort of class to learn how to properly use them and even more importantly, maintain them. This is a pretty interesting topic Jeff, let me know how the coffee stain turns out, and what you decide to do. Thanks.

[Accumulator]

I've used numerous "homeowner" extractors from Hoover and Bissell (still have three of them plus a Sears setup). While such units are a *LOT* better than nothing, especially for pet owners they don't really compare with the heated "pro grade" extractors. But the latter are big, heavy, and pretty expensive.

For the little ones, I never find the sprayers all that great. I usually end up using a spray bottle to deliver the cleaner. Note: I never tried the heated LGMs so those might be a different story.

I never had problems like Shiny Lil Detlr did, but I can sure see it happening. A defoamer product such as I use to prevent pump damage in my Century extractor might be worth considering (the stuff is cheap and it sure wouldn't take much for such a little machine).

A decent wet/dry vac will do pretty much anything a Bissell/Hoover extractor will do and the carpet brush attachment for my Cyclo is a lot better than the brushes built into those carpet machines.

The best homeowner-grade extractors I've used hook up to a faucet to provide hot water (at a decent pressure/volume too) that way. Sears sells a pretty decent carpet extractor package to use with their wet/dry sho vacs. It was my fave until I got the Century.

[Tom Weed]

Well, I just took the plunge and bought a Durrmaid extractor and sold my Little Green to someone I knew. I may break out the Durrmaid this evening on the wife's car but it would be hard to get good pics as she has a very dark interior. I also want to make sure I use the best methods for extracting and cleaning this unit as I don't want to mess it up seeing it was a big step in what I paid for it. Any tips from current owners would be appreciated.

As for the Little Green, I found it to be an okay machine. It did heat up the water to fairly hot, and the suction was okay. You just have to make sure you don't over saturate what your working on and allow for the dry time. The Turbo brush wasn't so great as it won't extract when the brush is rotating and it really didn't rotate very fast. It's also a little big for around seats. The brush on the main nozzle worked better, you just had to do it manually, but you could extract at the same time. Another beef about it was the hose is very short, so you have to keep the unit close by when your working.

Overall I think it's a decent machine and worth the 90.00 I paid for it. I did like the fact that it made hot water and was easy to clean up. Make sure you clean it and run clean water through it after each use so you don't clog it up.

Tom

P.S. Whenever I get around to using the Durrmaid on a lighter colored interior so I can take pics, and learn to use the machine, I will post my results.

[showtime]

I second running water through your LGSM. I toasted mine by letting it sit all winter without doing it. It corroded everything. I'm not doing too many cars that need an extractor now so I may not even get another one, dealer cars just get APC and scrubbed. If I have the extra money to spend then I might get one, until then I have 5 gallons of PRO extractor solution collecting dust.

[Shiny Lil Detlr]

Originally posted by Accumulator
I never had problems like Shiny Lil Detlr did, but I can sure see it happening. A defoamer product such as I use to prevent pump damage in my Century extractor might be worth considering (the stuff is cheap and it sure wouldn't take much for such a little machine).

Good idea about the defoamer; I never really thought about using it with one of the "smaller" machines when using a different solution chemical. As for the other issue I had, I know that one was my fault because of getting in a hurry and forgetting to do more than just rinse out the main tanks.

Oh, and just to mention both of the units I burned up were the ProHeat TurboBrush models that I was getting for $50 as "refurbished" units.