[the red carpet]

oh well just shrunk my first carpet.

it was a belgium wilton so i guess i shouldnt be to suprised, but i have cleaned 4 of these before with no problem so thought as long as i took my usual precations i would be safe,

turned down the temp.
turned down the pump.
only one cleaning pass.
turbo dryed.

but it didnt work this time within minutes of cleaning i could see the carpet rucking up and coming away from the edges in certain places it hasent all come away but in a few areas it has come of the gripper, i think one of the main causes of the shrinkage may be the fitting as im sure i remember reading that these should be fitted with double gripper, and in the place it has come away its just single gripper and the worst part is near the door were it just has the door bar thing holding it down.

anyway i have left the turbo drier on to totaly dry the carpet and luckily there is a carpet fitter going to lay a carpet in the other room later today so hopefully he will be able to kick it back onto the runner, i  know iv heard people on here say leave it 72 hours before trying to refit but as its not that bad and i am using a dryer and hes gonna be there anyway im gonna give it a try.

what im not sure of is if i should be paying for the refit or the customer if it is down to bad fitting.
im hoping the carpet fitter wont charge a lot and suggesting to the customer that we halve the bill

[Neil Grainger]

Hi Red

Did you warn of possible shrinkage with this carpet so you a.se is covered.

I always tell customers about the posibility of shrinkage with BW as its such a lottery.

Hope it all work out for you and you are not stung for to much money.

Cheers

Neil

[BRSL]

Hi Red

Im amazed your still going for payment good for you, I always run a 100% monney back garentee so if there not happy they dont pay, but I would think you wil end up with the bill for re fitting but most people work for foreiners (apart from us hay  ) just hope she's a understanding lady, and it sounds like you took all the right precautions good luck

[the red carpet]

hi neil,
i sort of warned her, what actually happened was i went round to do a quote and at the time of the quote i thought that the carpet was a b/w but couldnt find anywere to lift a bit to look at the backing, so anyway gave the customer a price to clean carpets but did tell her that it was subject to me checking the carpet first if she decided to go ahead as i was worried about the possibility of shrinking it.

anyway got the call to go back and do the work a couple of weeks later and went back today, checked the backing and it was a b/w but it was so clean anyway no marks or nothing that i thought i would get away with it as i would have to use so little water and i had the turbo dryer going.

just wish i had said to her today that it was up to her if she wanted me to clean it or not as it had the potential to shrink

[the red carpet]

hi pile profile.
i would also not expect a customer to pay if they were not happy.
but i have done work for this customer before and she knows my work is good,she was willing to pay me today but i told her i wouldnt accept payment untill the problem was sorted, i did warn her about the possibility of shrinkage and i did take all precautions against it, also i have told her that i accept responsibility but have pointed out that the carpet was not fitted properly and in a way she is lucky that she has chosen somone like myself to do the work as i spotted the potential for the carpet to shrink and did all i could to prevent it.
imagine if she had a splash and dash £10 a room cleaner with no training overwet it im sure it would look like a rug by now.

just hope i can get away with giving the carpet cleaner £20-£30 as hes there anyway.

[Chris R]

Did it re-stretch?

Be very surprised if it did, so soon. They usually need a day or two to loosen up.

When a belgium wilton comes off the door strip its usually very bad news.

good luck, I only use dry fusion on them now ( since having to buy a new one for a customer a few years ago )

Chris

[the red carpet]

well the carpet fitter has done me no favours.

he has told the customer that the carpet is a right of and you cannot restretch any carpet once shrunk and also it will continue to shrink for a while yet and get a lot worst, he also told her that you cannot ever wet clean any axminsters or wiltons as they will all definatly shrink and bassicaly i should have known better. he also told her there was nothing wrong with the fitting as there all fitted like that and i was probably just using this as a excuse to try and get out of it

as you can imagine she is now not very impressed

anyway i have spoke to another carpet fitter and he reckons providing it hasnt shrunk to much it shouldnt be a problem to refit it at a cost of around £35 so i have advised customer to wait 72 hours and then let this guy have a go

[Robert Watson]

Hi Danuel, I feel so sorry for you The fitters got some bad stuff going on in his head. Don`t let it get to you. You have a good Christmas.
Rabby.

[Buster Ingram]

Don't worry I have never seen a wilton NOT GO BACK yet.  In 20 odd yrs of cleaning they have followed me out the room and 2 days later they right as rain. You have to leave them to return on their own . IT WILL.
The Indians love them here in Wolverhampton every time I have shrunk one they say " Oh deary me"

[John Kelly]

There are carpet fitters and carpets fitters, this one is obviously a prat. Belgian Wilton need to fitted to british standards which means having double gripper around the perimeter, I haven't seen one yet fitted in this way (could be a get out clause for you). Get your self a good fitter on board, hopefully he won't get too much work from you but when he does make it worth his while. Finding a good fitter isn't easy probably talking to other cleaners is a good way to find one.
Unfortunately it is very hard to stretch back a Belgian Wilton, thats why they are such a pain. Proper Wilton and especially Axminsters usually stretch back ok. We done a flooded one recently £3,500. Ex carpet fitter who worked there tut tutted and said you'll never stretch that back. DID!

[BRSL]

dont let it spoil your christmas 

explain to her that her carpet fitter is full of S*** and hope for the best

Good luck

James

[Steve Weatherley]

So what is the easiest way to identify a BW from a normal Wilton?

[John_Flynn]

Wilton as made in England is 100% wool or maybe 80/20.

B/W is Sympathetic!! (synthetic), No I was right 1st time!!!

[Steve Weatherley]

Thats how I was taught how to identify them aswell. However Red Carpet mentioned that he looked at the backing and was able to identify it as a BW?
What would be significant about the backing that would help identify these carpets?

[the red carpet]

belgiums are synthetic man made fibre's, also i belive most are heavily patterned and if you look at the backing of the carpet the pattern is still clear.

spoke to my customer today and thankfully it hasnt got any worse.

so i think its of the door bar by about half a inch, of the gripper in a few places but not pulled in just sort of rucked up a bit, and stretched tight on the gripper in one spot its still held to the gripper but you can see were its contracted as its come away from the skirting a bit.

shes agreed to wait till thursday or friday and let me get a fitter in to give it a try so fingers crossed

[woodman]

I followed this thread with interest and note what others have said regarding the fitting,the fitter and the cleaning.

The simple conclusion is I'm afraid, it is your fault that the carpet shrunk.

A proper inspection would have for-warned you that it was a BW you can do this with out lifting it a simple burn test would have been sufficient to show it's a polyprop.It also would have revealed the poor fitting which you could have high lighted to the client before starting the cleaning.

As such it would have been apparant that this was a 'walk away' or LM clean only.

I agree the fitters have been no help at all and got in first with her on the accusations front ,which always tips the balance in their favour when it comes to trying to convince her otherwise.

Of course it's nonsense that no Axi's or Wilton can be wet cleaned but this isn't either so the onus is always on us as the professionals to make the right call.

You might get lucky and stretch it back ( but I doubt this)  but the gripper will have to be properly fitted now to hold it, which pobably means drill & plugging this is where you can show her how they bodged the fitting.Unlike John I have seen BW double edged fitted on many occasions and you may need now to do this to hold it.

I wish you well but if at the end of the day it all goes wrong, hold your hands up, dig out your insurance and get it replaced for her, it's cheap tat anyway so it won't cost much and you will have redeemed yourself some what in your clients eyes.

Good Luck

[Chris Bailey]

Go with Woodman on this, even qualifying before cleaning probably wouldn't have made a diffence if it went legal, you are a proffesional, you knew the risks before cleaning it yet you still cleaned it! - your liability... question is will your insurance company pay up OR will they say no way, it shrank through your neglect...

Worse case of course.

If BW'shave to be fitted to British Standards then there will be a British Standard somewhere for it!  If you need to demonstrate the I.Q. of the first carpet fitter then this would be a good starting point.

I have hwe'd in the past, thankfully without any problems, but I like to LM when I can.

The important thing is to redeem yourself with your client so that you get work in the future...  At what cost though!

Chris

[the red carpet]

hi guys,
woodman i did check the carpet before i cleaned and did  relise it was a b/w, with regards to the fitting it all seemed to be fitted well enough to me at first wasnt loose anywere so i decided to go ahead with caution as iv never had a problem before. As you say i took the risk and it backfired so its now my problem.

i dont think its worth me going down the insurance route if i do have to replace as i have a £500 excess.

Anybody have any idea how much the carpet would be worth? i dont know the measurements but its a standard sized lounge.

thinking back the way the carpet has been fitted its sort of tucked over/rolled over at the edges and then fitted to the gripper, i dont know what this is called, but it seems an inch or two tucked under. so thinking about it the carpet is in affect 2-4 inches longer each way than the room, so even if  the fittercant stretch it back onto the gripper, would he not be able to take it up and relay the whole thing.

[Michel Roberts]

All Carpets including BWs should be fitted to british standards.

In practice very few are

The british standard for carpet installation is BS 5235-2001 Code of practice for the installation of textile floorcoverings

Red Carpet I don t really understand what you mean by the carpet being rolled under/tucked over by an inch or two. The only way I can imagine this is if the gripper was fitted that sort of distance away from the skirting board which would be very wrong, but maybe I'm not understanding you correctly

Michel

[the red carpet]

as i say the edges are folded under so that instead of the gripper rod fixing to the underside of the carpet it is actually attatched to the face of the carpet,
(the carpet has not been cut flush to the skirting board) its hard to try and explain but if you can imagine were it is fixed to the gripper its actually the thickness of two layers of carpet