What you need to know before choosing the right steam carpet cleaner?
Before you start using a steam carpet cleaner at home, you should understand that the steam cleaning is not a chemical free cleaning method as many people think. In fact, to clean the carpet effectively, you will need to add a detergent in your machine tank and the machine will spray it into the carpet’s fibres. This detergent gets activated by the hot water. Ensure that you know what type of carpet you have – with synthetic fibres or with natural fibres. This information will help you to choose the right detergent. For synthetic carpet use an alkaline detergent, while for the natural fibre carpet use acidic carpet cleaning solution.
Of course, there are many eco-friendly carpet cleaning solutions in the market today that are not less effective than the chemical ones and can successfully substitute those. It is preferable to use them to protect our planet from contamination.
So, let us now see how does the steam carpet cleaner work
When you choose your carpet cleaner, it is advisable to choose one of the “walk-behind” type. It will provide you with a wide cleaning path and will be more efficient, especially for larger areas. Along with the common attachment, there are a variety of other attachments that will allow you to use the machine on different surfaces, like mattresses, wall partitions, curtains, and upholstery.
What are the key components of the steam carpet cleaner?
The Pump: It generates the pressure needed for water injection into the carpet. The steam cleaners can differ by pump pressure levels. The most powerful of them can be up to 500 psi.
The Vacuum: It is needed for dirty water extraction. It also vacuums the cleaning solution to ensure no residue is left on the carpet and is collected in the extraction tank instead. When you choose a steam cleaner, ensure that it has at least two-stage motors for great performance.
The Recovery Tank: It is intended to hold the water, dirt, and cleaning chemicals extracted from the carpet.
The Solution Tank: It can be more than one in the machine and it holds the rinse water. They can range in size.
The Heating Unit: This unit heats the water to 100 ºC to produce steam. Usually, it takes up to three minutes to reach that temperature, so you can start the cleaning process. The steam carpet cleaners may differ being single tank-heating models or to have double inline heating elements.
The Accessories: These include a large floor wand, one or two jets, stair and upholstery wands, cleaning solution and vacuum hoses in different lengths.
How to use it?
- Before you start using your carpet cleaner, thoroughly vacuum the carpet to remove all the dirt that is on the surface.
- Next, apply cleaning solution to dissolve the oils and grease. Thus, the efficiency of the cleaning will be increased.
- Heat the carpet cleaner to start cleaning and pay a special attention to the stained areas.
- Ensure your carpet is not made of natural fibres, such as wool, as it can shrink and your carpet may be ruined by the heated water.