Let’s walk through a scenario for a moment. There are guests who come from out of town and you wave a week to get ready. Your daughter spills juice on the living room rug and as you kneel down, cleaning up the mess, you notice that your living room rug looks like it is carrying an attacking horse on its way to feed time. How could this go unnoticed? There’s no way your cousin will let this slide without saying something. So, you need to steam clean the carpet.

The big question that comes to many people’s minds is: do I clean it professionally, or do I rent or buy a machine to do it myself? There are major pros and cons to each. It really depends on your budget and the amount of hassle you want to go through. In either case, you definitely don’t want your cousin to choose how ugly your rug will look.

What type of person are you? Are you a do-it-yourselfer? Do you enjoy rolling up your sleeves and studying projects with enthusiasm and adventure? Or, would you rather spend a little extra cash to get a project done on time without the hassle?

If you fall into the do-it-yourself “A” category, keep reading and we’ll cover some of the most basic ins and outs of using a carpet steam cleaner. If you fall into the “B” category, pay to own it, a quick Internet search for local carpet cleaning Point Cook will likely attract a large number of people who want to do the job for you.

The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to buy a carpet steam cleaner or rent one from your local hardware store. The nice thing about renting them out is that you don’t have to worry about breakage and lose money on repairs. The bad thing is, if I add up all the money I spent renting the machine, I can buy it now. And I believe buying a quality unit will save you money in the long run.

Steam Cleaner Reliability

So what are you looking for? The most important aspect is reliability. You don’t have to break it if you’re in a pinch and nervous to get started. There are some good ones out there and some bad ones. If you stick to consumer-level cleaners, read the reviews. Some of these units are more expensive for the bells and whistles, not for reliability. It appears that the biggest problem appears to be the failure of the scrubbing mechanism and the leaky water storage tank. If you rely on commercial cleaners, they will be more reliable, but because they are more expensive, it will take you longer to return your initial investment.

Water Extraction

This is the area that separates the best from the average. If leaning towards consumer class, pay attention to the motor current. This is sometimes an indicator of how much extraction power the unit will have. Most commercial-grade units will have a high amperage motor which will provide plenty of extraction power. There is much more to it than just motor current extraction. How well the unit is sealed and its design for vacuuming will make a difference in water intake. Make sure to read the reviews as you narrow your choices down to two or three units. Reviews where people complain that the carpet is still very wet after work is an indicator of a water retrieval problem. It is also an indicator of how much dirt your carpet has left. The water that is flowed serves as a carrier to remove dirt.

Scrubbing Mechanism

The scrubbing mechanism seems to match the hocus pocus; the super cliché technology that every company claims is to do everything for their carpet steam cleaners. No matter what scrubbing technology is called, the main focus is whether churning the fibers is enough to make them clean? Most carpet cleaning Wollert will scrub fairly well, although I prefer the cleaner that rotates over the horizontal axis. However, some mechanisms are made from cheap plastic and the more complex the scrubbing action is, the more prone to breakage. The reliability of the scrubbing mechanism should be considered in this review.

Well, I hope this has helped you in your quest to meet your catastrophic carpet cleaning deadlines. With some good research and planning, cleaning your own carpet shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.