Couple of carpets could do with a sort. Wondering whether to take the easy option and hire a Rug Doctor machine from Tesco, which is convenient, or use one of the many companies that put leaflets through the door, or what.
Anybody got any experience with these things?
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I would wait till spring or early summer.
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My dad is a carpet cleaner, and the price those rug doctors charge for chemicals is about 1000%* higher than what may dad pays for them! If it is just the odd room that needs cleaning it might be cheaper to use the services of a professional carpet cleaners.
As for the machines themselves, they used be (probably still are) made by Truvox which is one of the biggest carpet cleaner manufacturers as far better than the the perhaps better known Stimvak.
*Well much much higher anyway.
If you do use a leaflet, check they have the address on the leaflet, check they have been in business while, and avoid any bogus half price offers, it is just a scam.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Wed 7 Nov 12 at 21:30
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The cleaning products that the Rug Doctor uses might be hugely over prices. But you can hire a Rug Doctor for £20 from Morrisons (I think most places it's £22). That's for 24 hours rental. The carpet cleaner liquid price depends on how much you buy - I think 2 litres is about £15 and would do a house a few times over.
So rent one of these say three times and use 2l of cleaner. Total cost is about £75, or £25/time. If Rattle's dad will clean my carpets for £25 then the next time it needs doing the job is his.
I bet Rattle's dad pays less for the carpet cleaner liquid but does not pass on the savings - why would he.
My neighbour has a carpet cleaning business too... still hired a rug doctor.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Wed 7 Nov 12 at 21:46
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I hired a professional carpet cleaning machine from Speedyhire a few years back, it did the job fairly well ISTR.
Just before we moved house 1.5 years ago, I called in www.carpetknights.co.uk/ who carried out a really excellent job and I would leave it to the pro's in future.
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All you need is a low foaming detergent.
Hire the machine and use this:- tinyurl.com/ayk7bxs
I used to have a Karcher carpet cleaning machine, as part of our car valeting/preparation kit and used it quite a bit to clean all the carpets in the bungalow we had before going off to the land of marble floors.
Last edited by: Roger on Wed 7 Nov 12 at 22:09
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Use a company which uses a dry cleaning method. Wet cleaning methods take several days to dry.
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If you’re prepared to use a little elbow grease, buy a bottle or two of 1001 Shampoo. It’s a large area cleaner for carpets and upholstery and costs around £1.75 for 450ml.
You’ll only need a colourfast cloth or sponge (although I prefer top use a small brush), and a vacuum cleaner.
Good result every time for me.
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Thanks for all the feedback. I'm not going to do it myself with a sponge, so at first pass I'm going to get a quote from somewhere (possibly these guys: www.artofclean.co.uk/ ) just to see how it stacks up against a Rug Dr. I appreciate there's a premium to paid on the cleaning liquids that way, but it's not a big area I'm doing so won't be too bad.
Thanks for the CarpetKnights suggestion, but I'm not moving my house to Cornwall.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 8 Nov 12 at 10:56
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Crikey Dog. Those mournful minors. Sigh. Great stuff. Did you see the documentary on Fairport Convention a week or two back on t' BBC?
All reminds me of that great track "Fotheringay", where there is a particularly nice walk, and a particularly nice apple tree in a hedge along a lane that gave me, many years ago, the best apple I ever did scrump. Ate it, thanked the tree, as you should do, and still remember eating it. :)
However, today I have been chiefly listening to Porcupine Tree and Queenrÿche, so your Sandy stuff was soothing, and luckily not "here comes Captain Bringdown".
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>> Did you see the documentary on Fairport
>> Convention a week or two back on t' BBC?
I did, although not particularly a Fairport fan (I got interested in them partly because I discovered the producer of the early REM and 10000 Maniacs I like was Joe Boyd).
iPlayer says 'coming soon', along with a Sandy Denny programme which I haven't seen.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=fairport
Last edited by: Focusless on Thu 8 Nov 12 at 11:48
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Good spot Focusless. Will set box to record the Denny programme on Friday.
When Dog's first track started I thought it was the B lovechild of Jacqueline du Pré and Janis Ian.
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I was never a big fan of Fairport Convention really, I like to hear Sandy Denny sing though, like this one:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=szrGtFxtWXU
Good shout about the iPlayer progs F/less :o)
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Dry cleaning doesn't clean as well as steam cleaning and you can use a dryer to quickly dry the carpets. Even without the drying process they usually are completely dry within a day.
Shampoo'ing methods don't clean the carpets properly, they only clean the service, with hot water extraction, there is a pump which sucks out all the dirt from underneath the carpet.
The risk with hot water extraction is you need to be able to understand different types of carpet, as some (such as a Belgium Wilton) are prone to shrinking.
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In our Puzzi 100 machine by Karcher i use persil liquid to wash the carpet if it's good enough for designer clothes it will wash the carpet and it does.
Then i go over it with Comfort softner for that fresh smell and soft feeling to the carpet, it gets washed 3-4 times a year i have kids and im a sloppy t$%£ for not taking my shoes off.!!
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>> In our Puzzi 100 ............
Special offer £284 + 20% VAT. Crikey! www.sparepartsdirect.com/acatalog/Karcher_Puzzi_100_special_offer.html
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You can buy the Rug Doctor cleaner for £499. The one to buy differs as it's blue and not red. People rent and try to steal the hire ones apparently.
But at £20/24 hour rental that's a lot of renting before you could justify buying one for home use.
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My puzzi was about £285.00 off e bay brand new i guess the price may have gone up i have had it 4 years, i got one for my dad when i worked for a karcher dealer it was £220.00 2 years before.
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>> Couple of carpets could do with a sort. Wondering whether to take the easy option
>> and hire a Rug Doctor machine from Tesco, which is convenient, or use one of
>> the many companies that put leaflets through the door, or what.
>>
>> Anybody got any experience with these things?
>>
>>
Hello,
I also hire a service for carpet cleaning. They use Bissell carpet cleaner and a bucket of warm water to make my carpet clean,...
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A close relative was a professional carpet and upholstery cleaner for many years; he would use dehumidifiers to remove remaining moisture after the cleaning sessions.
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Welcome to the forum James, you involved in carpet cleaning at all??
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I used the ubiquitous Rug Doctor hired from Tesco to clean the carpets in my mothers bungalow.
It was ok i guess, but not brilliant. And a right PITA to move about.
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Re Rug Doctor.
I thought it was someone Elton John, Wayne Rooney, (and anyone else who's had hair transplants) go to when they have trouble with their syrup ;)
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Hmm, James Brown, Papa's got a brand new bag (in his Hoover ...)
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I bought on about ten years ago now.It works fine used it in my daughter and son houses.
We only have carpets upstairs the rest is laminate flooring easy to clean and looks nice.
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Bought one of these off ebay 10 years ago for £25 or so - fantastic vacuum cleaner.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KIRBY-G4-vacuum-cleaner-with-numerous-attachments-/192221920512
The carpet shampooer works quite well on stains and doesn't soak the carpet like the Rug Doctor, but I very rarely use it.
Most of the time we use rechargeable GTECH cleaners at home and in our cottage - very effective, no fannying about with cords, but I must say I find them quite noisy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dIu0hVxKNs
(that's not me btw!)
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Kirby a name from the past ?
IIRc even years ago they were very expensive - IIRC £500 +? for a basic model.
I had a quick search and they are still for sale
e.g. Kirby Avalir 100th year anniversary model vacuum cleaner
£699.99 + £29.00 P&P
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The Kirby vacuum cleaners were always very efficient but, as you say, very expensive.
Usually demonstrated by a salesman in your home and who would be very difficult to get rid of if you decided it was too high a price to pay....:-)
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Carpet cleaning - Zero
