[Clintess Carpet]

Sombody told me today, a carpet cleaner doesn't need anymore than 100psi to clean carpets, any more and you're putting too much water down?

Any thoughts?

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Use good quality cleaning chemicals for prespraying at the correct dilutions then you wont need to rely on masses of water. The higher the psi I would reccommend more vacuum.

[derek west]

its all about ratios, a single vac couldn't pull out 200psi where as a truckmount cleaning at 50psi would be a waste of resources, i clean at 200 to 300psi and am confident in the suction power i have to get that water back out again. its all about cleaning at the right psi for your machine.

[JandS]

Sounds low Derek, what size jets?
When I switch from handtool at 250psi
to wand and forget to up the pressure
I know straight away as it is too low.

John

[Jim_77]

Depends on the flow rate of the pump more than anything else   Most wands have a total jetting of '06 unless customised

I find 450psi the max I ever need, but go no lower than 250 even on "clean" carpets

And wand technique is everything... you force a lot more water into a carpet if you push & pull with the trigger held, whereas only pulling the trigger on the backwards stroke makes a huge difference to moisture left behind.

[robert meldrum]

You can put too much water down at 50 psi..............if you are not competent with the tools, just as you can use 500 psi but still achieve rapid drying times if you ARE competent.

Most domestic carpets can be cleaned adequately at 100 psi but will need the right mix of;-

Vacuuming or not
Prespraying with enough dwell time
Use of aggitation device or not

I've used a number of single vac' machines and psi rates from 70 - 500 and some single vac machines with low psi rates achieved excellent results, but needed a lot more physical effort.

Even a little Puzzi can achieve a reasonable result in a emergency. I had to use one a couple of weeks ago as I was unable to get closer than 50 feet and then two floors up which would have been OK if it wasn't -8 degrees and hard packed snow between the van and the building.

[wynne jones]

PSI is fairly meaningless a portie at 400psi is a p1ss in the ocean to a TM at 200PSI. As Jim says the throughput of water is the main thing. As a TM can suck it all back up this isn't a problem, but as Rob says if the operator even of a TM who is a dimwit you can have a real problem on your hands.