http://www.burrows.com/carpetcleaning/index.htmlFrom the Webber Manual:
A SHORT HISTORY OF CARPET CLEANING
In ancient times carpets were not used as floor coverings so they required little more than an infrequent beating to get the dust off of them. Remember that in these times sanitation was not what we know it to be today and keeping wall hangings clean was a minor concern. As carpeting moved to the floors the practice of beating them continued for years. Everyone who owned carpeting had dirty carpeting so it was normal to see them dirty, and it was even expected. Just to own a rug back then was a luxury, even if it was filthy!
The past century has seen a revolution in the carpet's construction as well in the ability to improve the appearance of them. As carpeting came down in price, more and more people began to see the value of the insulating and acoustical improvement it gave to their rooms.
With so many carpets being installed in offices and homes the need to clean them became a profitable sideline for a few janitorial companies. As even more carpets were in use a few janitorial services began to specialize in carpet and rug cleaning.
Carpets and rugs were primarily made of wool through these years. Silk was found in a few of the Oriental and Persian rugs but these were expensive collector's items and were not often used as floor coverings. Some cotton was used but not much.
The first systems for cleaning these wool rugs was to scrub them with soapy solutions and use towels to absorb as much of the soil and soap as possible. This toweling also helped in the drying. Eventually the rotary floor machines were adapted to apply the shampoo chemicals faster and easier, and wet vacuums were used to suck suspended soils and shampoo out of the carpet. This produced outstanding results because natural fibers do respond well to these types of chemicals and agitation.
The chemicals, however, were not fully removed and therefore attracted new soil to the carpeting very quickly. It wasn't long before everyone knew this and learned not to have the carpeting cleaned until a wedding or other special event.
This brought about the invention of the in-plant rinsing machines that became popular for so many years. These plant operators would pick up the rugs from their customers in the spring (after the cold weather), clean and store them for the customers until fall. Walking into a carpet plant in the summer one would think that the company was storing chords of firewood, there were so many rolls of carpeting.
When the carpets were brought into the plant they were first sent through a mechanical beater upside down to remove as much loose soil as possible. This machine would bend the carpets backward to open the yarns as it beat the loose dirt into a hopper. Due to the poor vacuum cleaners of the day and the lack of consumer maintenance through the winter, the amount of soil removed with this bending and beating was considerable. Frequently, on particularly dense carpeting the process would be repeated numerous times.
Next the rugs were shampooed using the rotary shampooers mentioned above. Before they could dry they were taken to the rinsing machine and flushed with large volumes of clean water to remove as much suspended soil and shampoo as possible.
The in plant rinsing machine is similar in nature to the steam cleaning systems used today in on-location work except that the machine was larger than the carpet, fixed to the floor, and the carpeting was fed into it. Jets of water were fix over the path of the carpet to insure even rinsing.
Before the carpet left the machine, it was squeezed by rollers to force out excess moisture.
The back of the rinsing machine usually led to a drying room and the carpets were lifted high in the air to dry. Humidity was exhausted from the drying room by large wall and ceiling fans to speed up the drying process.
The invention of tack strip was to eventually be the downfall of this industry. The cost of removal and replacement of carpets that were firmly tacked to the floor forced the price of in plant carpet cleaning way up. The carpets had to be removed from the tack strip, cleaned, and reinstalled. Many would shrink in the plant and could not be properly reinstalled. Many area rugs are still cleaned this way but the increasing amount of wall to wall carpeting has forced these plant cleaners to do on-location work as well.
Those who were doing carpet cleaning on-location with the shampooers and wet vacuums became the "lesser of evils" to the customers with wall to wall carpeting, because they didn't have the operating overhead and could clean the carpets on the tack strip. Another advantage of the on-location cleaning was that the immediate appearance improvement with shampooing was impressive to the customers.
Around 1960, the tufted nylon carpets began to appear in the homes and offices and the shampoo system didn't give these carpets the instant improvement that it had given the wool rugs. Natural fibers absorbed much of the shampoo residue and hid it; nylon did not. Nylon would not absorb the chemicals so the chemicals coated the outside of the fibers making the finished carpets looked gray rather than clean.
By 1965 steam carpet cleaning began to get a foot in the door. The first steam machines were crude, having huge amounts of water flow but borderline, if not inferior, suction. Add this to the fact that no one was truly experienced in the concept of making extra dry passes with the vacuum to remove water, and the fact that the backings of these earlier carpets were jute, many carpets were over-wet and shrunk away from the walls. One more problem plagued the earlier steam cleaners: the chemicals that they employed were loaded with surfactants and these chemicals were super-wetting the backings (as well as some padding and flooring).
The existing shampoo companies resented the new steam cleaning process and in defense of their established businesses they perpetuated the idea that it was the heat that caused the shrinkage in steam cleaning (actually, at that time steam cleaners were using tap water and getting the carpet hot was virtually impossible). It was the over-wetting that was the actual problem, but it sure sounded good at the time.
During this period, steam cleaners were shrinking a very large percentage of the carpeting because the majority of the rugs were wool pile and wool woven backings. So the shampoo companies were able to easily fend off the threat that the steam cleaners would take their customers. It became household knowledge that steam cleaning shrinks and ruins carpets. The rumor persists today.
Between the years of 1965 and 1975 a great deal of things changed for both the shampoo industry as well as the steam cleaning industry. The changes were so gradual that they were not noticed on a day to day basis.
First of all, the carpets changed. The once predominantly wool carpets were becoming scarce as the price of nylon came down and nylon carpets began to become prominent. Olefin and polyester began to appear. The shampoo industry was slowly beginning to lose its grip on the industry as steam cleaning made a resurgence. The steam machines were improved to retrieve more solutions, training seminars were established that taught better techniques, and the steam systems left less chemicals so they didn't leave the gray appearance that shampoo did.
After taking a verbal beating from shampoo companies for years, and now having improved the system, steam cleaners began to battle back with remarks like "shampoo re-soils more quickly" and "all of that spinning on the yarns untwists them" and "shampoo left in the carpet will kill the dog".
Steam cleaning became the most prominent system on the market by 1985. There are good companies and some that do poor work, just like there are good and bad in any industry. The system is good but the operator is in charge and it's up to that operator to do the job right. This is obviously true of any system.
Steam cleaners have been so angered by the shampooers that they frequently put on blinders to ignore any good attributes about them. As an industry, steam cleaners have forgotten how well shampoo makes wool look and have blamed their poor steam cleaning results on the wool carpeting or the customer. Wool is relatively rare and it's easy to do this once in a while when the results on the vast majority of the jobs is so good.
A golden opportunity awaits the cleaner that learns that wool will shampoo very well with a neutral shampoo and if rinsed with a steam cleaning machine using just water (no chemical in the rinse) it will remain clean like other carpets that are rinsed with water. It's time to take the blinders off and recognize all of the systems and the advantages of each one.
There are still customers that do not want steam cleaning because of the problems that were created back in the late '60's and early '70's. To fill the needs of these customers many other systems have emerged. Dry foam, spin bonnet and dry powder are a few.
Each of the following systems has its place in the industry. Take a look at what you intend to do in your business and decide which system you are going to use most efficiently in your endeavors.