Case Study: Water Damaged Pool Table Top

We were contacted by a Water Damage Restoration company to restore a pool table top that received water damage and secondary dust accumulation.

Pool table felt quality is crucial to the game. If the felt is sticky, rough, or loose you will not be able to enjoy the game. We needed to use a process that would be minimally aggressive, leave no residue, and limit moisture to prevent delamination of the felt from the table structure.

We initially performed dry soil removal using a horsehair brush and lightly brushing soil into the air stream of our HEPA filtered vacuum. Once the vacuuming was complete, we lightly applied an encapsulant cleaning product, which crystallizes when dry to be removed via vacuuming. This product was lightly brushed into the felt using a horsehair brush. After brushing the table top was dried using high speed air movers. The encapsulant application and drying process were repeated in heavily soiled areas. Once the felt was completely dry, a second vacuuming process, mirroring the first, was performed to remove the crystallized encapsulant.

As you can see from the final picture the table top was safely restored. This process cost about 40% of the replacement cost of new felt. This process also prevented the homeowner from needing to have the table disassembled for replacement, saving precious time that can be devoted to something else.

Case Study: Hot Chocolate, YUM!

We were contacted by an apartment complex to remove a hot chocolate stain from an area rug which could not be removed by their current service provider. In the first image you can see a dark spot where the spill occurred and a larger spot surrounding it caused by multiple unsuccessful attempts to remove the stain.

In the second image, you can actually see the spill has caused damage to the laminate hardwood floor underneath the rug. When you spill a large amount of liquid on an area rug, it is important to lift the rug to dry underneath. This image also shows the soiling present on the back of the rug, which must be addressed.

The protocol for properly removing a stain like this is to clean both the top and bottom of the rug. If you clean the top of the rug only, a process called wicking will occur causing the spot to reappear during the drying process. Wicking is a process where water will carry soil from the backing or base of the carpet or rug to the top, leaving it behind as it evaporates. Wicking occurs via capillary action, which is an amazing combination of cohesive and adhesive forces that allow water to climb vertical surfaces. Capillary action is what allows trees to supply its leaves with water from its roots.

After protecting the floor to prevent further moisture related damage, we treated the top and bottom of the rug with a stain remover, allowed it dwell time, agitated the fibers to further suspend the soil in solution before rinsing the soil and stain remover away using a hot water extraction method. In the third and fourth pictures you can see the soiling has been removed from the front and back of the rug.

Case Study: The Muddy Dog & The Sofa

A customer called me one day, after we had some rainy weather, telling me that their dog had come inside and jumped straight onto the sofa bringing muddy paws with him. He laid down on a single cushion, pictured above, before she was able to get him off and clean.

Initial instinct would be to try to wash this immediately, which is not actually advisable in this situation. Other than the area where the dog laid down pressing the mud into the fibers, the mud was gently resting on the surface of the sofa. Attempting to wash the sofa in any way typically available to a homeowner would only allow the soil to migrate deeper into the fabric.

Once dry, this mud becomes dirt, the majority of which can be easily vacuumed away as shown in the picture above; the lower half has been vacuumed, and the upper half has not. The only area of the sofa that required wet cleaning of any kind was the center of the cushion pictured, even though the majority of the sofa was covered in mud after the original incident.

The world of soil removal is like anything else, a lot more complex than most think. Some soiling and spills are best left alone to dry, as in the above example, while some spills need to be treated immediately or they are guaranteed to require color restoration or structural repairs, other spills can simply be scooped up and wiped with a damp cloth.

Steam Cleaning?

When it comes to your carpets, steam cleaning is a lie. Well, it's really more of a misnomer.

The proper term for the process recommended most by carpet manufacturers is Hot Water Extraction, not steam cleaning. Not an important distinction for our customers as much as it is for a technician to truly understand the process being performed.

When someone is using high temperature producing hot water extraction equipment, what is mistakenly interpreted as steam is actually water in liquid form. While some gaseous water is generated, this amount is very little. Water used in Hot Water Extraction is pressurized and pressurizing any substance increases its boiling point.

A common operating pressure for a hot water extraction method is about 400 PSI. At 400 PSI the boiling point of water is 444.3 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to generate steam the water in our equipment would need to be heated to 444.3 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, which is way above a safe operating temperature. Actual operating temperatures are adjusted between a range from 150-250 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the material being worked on and its tolerance for heat.

The mist that is often seen flowing from carpet cleaning wands in videos everywhere is in all reality heat loss and inefficiency in the process. This mist also saturates the surrounding air with moisture hindering drying conditions after cleaning.

At Look’N Good Cleaning Service we have a deep understanding of the science involved in our cleaning products and equipment. We employ cleaning equipment that minimizes this heat loss, maintaining that energy and utilizing it where it needs to be, rinsing soil and residues away from your carpet. Minimizing this mist production also allows carpet to dry more easily which means you get to make use of your carpeted spaces faster.