Carpet Cleaning Issues - Carpet construction, upholstery cleaning, stain removal, equipment, events, etc.
Re-dyeing bleach stains?Posted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 30 December 2003
Would just like to bounce this one off somebody to see if i am approaching it right.
Been to see a customer today who wants a number of carpets cleaned in her house.
13 year old wool carpets which go right through the house. Nice peach shaded carpets that have been looked after over the years the peach shade design varies between dark peach to just off white.
No problem with cleaning them I thought untill AHHHH
I spotted all the white bleach marks.
There must be about 20 of them dotted around the house from a small spot up to the size of a 50 pence.
My little cleaning lady did them she said trying to remove the dark stains in the carpet ( bless her little cotton socks )
yes I said and she has certainly removed the dark stains for you and left you with some nice white ones.
I am thinking of dying the bleached areas if I can find some peach colour dye that will blend in.
Could any body tell me if they have tried this before and am I approaching this problem in the right way.
If so what would be the best type of dye to use.
PaulPosted by Ken_Wainwright (Ken Wainwright), 30 December 2003
Paul
Yes you are thinking along the right lines, but no, don't do it. Colour repair is quite involved and technical (to the uninitiated). You'll need to strip any protector, neatralise the bleach, clean the spot....... the list goes on. You don't colour the yarn as you would say a wall with paint, you have to take into account the damaged colour then adjust. e.g if the spot was yellow and you added blue you would end up with a green spot. You also then need to adjust for shade and lustre etc. The results will never be perfect, but better than before. You also need to use a dye suitable to the fibre you are colouring, not a general purpose one. I'd suggest finding someone suitably trained and qualified. It's a premium service at a premium price. If madam is still interested, suggest she enquires as to whether she is covered by her contents insurance.
Safe and happy cleaning
KenPosted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 30 December 2003
Thanks Ken for your advice.
On a different subject What bike you ridin
PaulPosted by Ken_Wainwright (Ken Wainwright), 30 December 2003
Diversion 600, Krausers all round, Hagons front & back Do you ride Paul?
Safe and happy cleaning
KenPosted by Ivar_Haglund (Ivar_Haglund), 30 December 2003
You may think I'm nutz but here it goes
old carpet dyers trick
get some crayons YES crayons big box lots of colours
make a colour match on paper
then colour the carpet
If the colour is not quite right a little solvent will remove
If colour match is good
get a steam iron and cotton towel
put on stain this will remove the wax and set the dye.
IVAR 
Posted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 31 December 2003
Ken
I got a Suzuki Intruder 800 for summer cruzzzzing with the missus 
, a 1200 bandit with a full kit on (bhp 125) for my rebel days 
.
The other guys prob think we are mad Ken but as you will know............ NOTHIN BEATS IT......................
PaulPosted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 31 December 2003
Ivor
Thanks kindly for the reply.
The lady wants the stains hidden and wants me to try and do something with a no issues on me if it does not work out,so I will try out your idea on a small area to see if it works.
Regards
PaulPosted by woodman (woodman), 31 December 2003
Paul, Retufting is the way to go.
Forget about dying it's a waste of time and money as Ken says it's very involved.There used to be a company called Rainbow (not the franchise) that used to carry this out don't know what happened to them but not around any more.
If she has small dots of bleach you can easily rectify this by re-tufting.Even the large spots can be done.
use tufts taken from around the edge or from a mat of the same carpet.
If you can't do this contact someone who can, might invlove a bit of ringing around and watch how it's done.
It's a very usefull skill to have and is not as difficult as you might imagine.
Good LuckPosted by Ken_Wainwright (Ken Wainwright), 31 December 2003
So Paul Moss is the Wheelie Meister.
And he's cool in shades
W.O.F.O
KenPosted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 1 January 2004
Woody
Thanks for the reply
I will do some ringing around on Monday.
PaulPosted by md_cleaning (md_cleaning), 1 January 2004
Ivar,
That is a brilliant idea about the crayons 
There is so much to learn on here.
Dave. Posted by Dynafoam (Dynafoam), 1 January 2004
Paul,
Woodman has advised well, following his advice will also give you a free training course as a bonus.
Dave,
Ivars' tip regarding the use of crayon pigment does indeed work well, especialy on strong colours, but for paler pigments I prefer to use the special felt-tips intended for DIY Tee-shirts. These can be purchased from many craft shops and cover a wide range of colours. Always have a suitable spotter to hand when using, so that any mistakes can be corrected.
John.Posted by paul_moss (paul_moss), 2 January 2004
John
Thanks for the tip with the T Shirt pens.
To all Thanks for the response to this Subject.
I have to say that the Help and advice on this Web site is superb.
Happy New Year
PaulPosted by Caesar (Caesar), 2 January 2004
FIRST OF ALL IF BLEACH ON WOOL.rEMEMBER IT IS EITHER FIBER DAMGED OR BACKING DELIMINATION ALSO.cHLORINE IS VERY BAD FOR WOOL.iT DISOLVES IT.fIND OUT MORE THEN EMAIL ME.i GOT TO RUN RUGHT NOW... whoops sorry about cap lock. Posted by Ian_G. (Ian_Gourlay), 4 January 2004
Ken is always on about training courses.
When I went to Ashbys Chris (Guy who has written Marketing Manual)
Said best way to deal with it was to use some dylon. And mix colours until you get to correct shade.
Never tried it as I do not feel confident enough to perform task on someone elses carpet for a fee.
Retufting looks good saw it at Altec Open Day and as many of you know they do a one day course on it.
But is demand sufficient to justify cost, is it just a nice to know, and to give you supperiority over over carpet cleaners. Posted by Ken_Wainwright (Ken Wainwright), 4 January 2004
Hi Ian
My IICRC Colour Repair Instructor was quite adamant that the Dylon cotton and universal type of dyes should not be used for colour repair on wool and nylon carpets. I can't remember the reasons why, but it may be because of the long term effectiveness. You state that Ashby's encourage using these Dylon type of dyes, prepared to the closest shade. I've no experience of this type of colour matching, but it would be reasonable to presume that as with the Prism Colour Repair Kit from Chemspec and others, you would need to take into account the colour of the yarn you are dyeing, e.g. you add a blue dye to a yellow yarn to give a green colour. Again, like the Prism kit, you will need to neutralise or strip any soil/contaminants/protectors first, and add a mordaunt to set the dye.
I would agree that, in purely cost/return terms, Colour Repair may not be cost effective unless you were to market the service aggresivelly, and again I would agree that it is a valuable addition to any technician's CV. When it comes to treating 1 small bleached spot, the repair can be time consuming, but you'll still get a return of about £40 for half an hours work or so. But if you were repairing a larger stained area, producing, for example, a £100 return, you would only add about 10 minutes to your time on site as you will still only be preparing the one dye batch (per colour). Re-tufting is quite often an effective, quicker and easier route, and letting in a "patch" can be carried out successfully too on larger areas. Colour Repair can be successful on spots/stains small and large, and the real big money can be matching the colour/blending in mis-matched dye batches on new installations or light faded areas, but I've never done that sort of work.
I've never marketed my Colour Repair work particularly well, but I've seen most of the repairs I've done and re-cleaned the carpets without any problems at all. Naturally, my customers are delighted and it would be very difficult to put a monetary value on that. As a professional carpet cleaner, I would not be comfortable offering any service without suitable training.
Safe and happy cleaning
KenPosted by Ian_G. (Ian_Gourlay), 7 January 2004
Ken,
Re Dylon,
Yes that was suggested method.
It was part of a talk on being creative and looking for work when at a customers. Alternitively part of saying that my job is to sell cleaning solutions.
However before I ever attemted anything like that I would want to practice practice.
And go on a course dedicated to the technique.
What I do find strange about this industry is that there are pleanty of companies trying to sell you courses but there are not many books on the subject,
I am a great believer in distanct learning I got my degree that way.
Perhaps its somthing the NCCA could condider they might attract more members.
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