Tag: carpet cleaners

How to Choose the Right Carpet Cleaning Company: 7 Tips

In today’s modern world the internet is most people’s go-to when looking to hire a service. You will find the internet saturated with carpet cleaning companies, however not all are reputable, trained, or honest. It is essential to be informed before making a decision on who to hire. Consider the following tips & avoid these 7 mistakes that consumers make before hiring a carpet cleaning company.

Mistake #1 
Choosing a carpet cleaner based on equipment alone.

Sure proper equipment is necessary to do a good job, however if the operator is not properly trained the best equipment in the world won’t do what it is supposed to do. The best way to know that the carpet cleaner have been properly trained is to make sure the cleaner has been certified by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC). Before you choose a carpet cleaner, ask to see written proof of the company’s and the technician’s IICRC certification.

Mistake #2 
Choosing a carpet cleaner based on low price.

Lowest price could mean a very costly mistake in three ways:

  • Low price is the bait that gets you to call & schedule the appointment. Once in your home, you are pressured into a more expensive job.
  • Lowest price can be for  a ‘single-process’ Once explained, the customer is pressured to purchase the more expensive “dual/deluxe process ” (Illegal “bait-and-switch”).
  • Lowest price probably means the carpet cleaner has minimal skills, will be using the cheapest chemicals and inferior equipment – you could actually be paying them to ruin your carpets or soft furnishings!
Mistake #3 
Choosing a carpet cleaner based on a single telephone call.

As with choosing any service provider it is always a good idea to check the credentials of the carpet cleaning company before you invite them into your home. How long have they been in business? Do they offer firm, written quotations prior to performing any services? Make sure to get references & read comments from current clients. These are all important considerations to avoid becoming the victim of high-pressure sales tactics when the technician steps into your home.

Mistake #4

Choosing a carpet cleaner that doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee.

Inexperienced cleaners have all kinds of reasons why they would never offer a guarantee: “What if the carpet is 20 years old and has permanent stains? – I’ll lose my shirt.

Experienced cleaners know that consumers aren’t unreasonable, generally. They have a pretty good idea which of their stains are permanent and they don’t expect a 20-year-old carpet that 4 kids and 10 pets were raised on will look like brand new because it was cleaned. They also know that a company that doesn’t offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee is not very  confident of their ability to delight their clients with good old fashioned skill and service. Ask him if he offers a written guarantee and make sure it is included on the written quotation.

Mistake #5

Choosing a carpet cleaner who doesn’t use safe, natural cleaning products that are free of harsh chemicals.

Most carpet cleaners use a toxic chemicals, that according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) can cause damage to the liver, central nervous system, and kidneys.

Some of the harmful ingredients that may be found in carpet cleaners include:
  • Pesticides
  • Disinfectants
  • Formaldehyde
  • Fragrances
  • Acids
  • Lye (Sodium Hydroxide)

Besides being detrimental to the health of humans, these carpet cleaning chemicals can also be harmful to animals & the environment as well. When the toxins in the chemicals are exposed, they contaminate both air and water which harm the earth.

Mistake #6

Choosing a carpet cleaner who isn’t certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI)

I shudder to think what some of these guys are doing to people’s carpets by going out there with no formal training and trying to operate a truckmount that puts out 3 gallons of 200-degree water per minute at 500 psi. Even worse, trying to get a carpet clean with a rug doctor or portable that doesn’t have any power. (I see the results every day.)

Though seeing your operator’s certification (not his boss’s) doesn’t guarantee he will do a good job, not seeing it can mean just about anything.

Mistake #7:

Choosing a carpet cleaner who doesn’t use a truck-mounted, hot water extraction system.

Truck-mount systems are the Rolls Royces of carpet cleaners. The world’s largest carpet manufacturer Shaw industries “recommends the hot water extraction system, to maintain their carpet/products warranties. This system of cleaning extracts dirt and bacteria from your carpet fibers unlike other methods. Compared with portable machines, truck-mount systems use hotter water, higher pressure and stronger suction. All the way around, you get a much better job. 

Please give us a call at (973)343-7627 if there is any additional information, questions or concerns. We look forward to being your carpet cleaning company of choice.

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How To Identify & Avoid Carpet Cleaning Rip-Offs And Scams

Rip-off #1: Unbelievable Low Price

To some degree, all of us are attracted by low price because we want to work within a budget. But some carpet cleaners use price as the bait for their false and misleading advertising. They offer a cheap price – usually between $60.00 and $80.00per room – and then, once you’ve taken off work and moved out all of your furniture, come into your home and insist that you’re going to need all of these “add-ons”. It’s as if you were buying a car and found that the dealer was charging you extra for the tires and steering wheel. These are the guys who argue that you need soil-protection, then spray down plain water. Carpet cleaning is not as cheap as some unethical carpet cleaners would have you to believe.

Everybody knows, “you get what you pay for” and, “if it sounds too good to be true, it is.”

Rip-off #2: Bait and Switch

“Dual-process” “steam” carpet cleaning describes the process of shampooing or heavy pre-conditioning, followed with hot water extraction. Since this procedure is about the only way to make hot water extraction (falsely called “steam”) the least bit effective, it is really not optional. Unfortunately, unethical carpet cleaners often use “dual-process” as a bait-and-switch technique.

Here’s how it’s done:

First, they “bait” you with a basic carpet cleaning (single process) at an unbelievably low price. Then, when you call, or after they get into your home and inspect your carpet, they try to “switch” you to the more-expensive dual-process cleaning. If you don’t go for their switch, they often just walk, or you’ll likely receive a quick cold-water spray-and suck using little or no chemical (yielding worse than no results) and they, of course, won’t guarantee their work.

Rip-off #3: Unsupported claims

Of course, you’ll see this in every ad, and rightfully so. If a cleaner is not himself convinced that his methods are the “best”, then what are they?

Fastest? Most profitable? Easiest? Least fatiguing? Who would want a cleaner that didn’t at least try to convince you that his methods are the most effective? But remember this: the method that’s best for you is the method that achieves your goal. Let’s say you want a method that restores your carpet to like-new condition as possible, reduces your exposure to pathogens and contaminants, that dries quickly, and leaves the carpet smelling fresh. Then a method that soaks the carpet takes days to dry, looks worse than it did before, and smells like a wet dog for a couple of days, will probably not be the method for you. So before you choose a carpet cleaner, identify your objectives. Then select the method that is most likely to achieve your goals.

Rip-off #4: Outdated Beliefs:

Maybe I can demonstrate how false this claim is by relating a little horror story from my early days – one of many thousands. When I first started, I was trained for 2 weeks in the use of the “Spin-Bonnet” method hotels in New Jersey. I was a degreed Engineer, no stranger to education, and I felt I needed a broader background than “just mix it up, spray it down, and scrub it back up. If the spots don’t come out, squirt some of the concentrates on it and it will scrub right out.” (Actually, I got on quite famously this way for about a year).I found one supplier who had put together a complete formal carpet cleaning training program including:

  • Carpet construction and fiber identification
  • Chemistry of cleaning and spot removal
  • Carpet cleaning methods
  • How to fix problems associated with cleaning
  • How to repair split seams, permanent stains, etc.

…which they got accredited – passing the exam meant you would actually receive college credit. I received post-graduate credit. Anyway, here’s what happened.

It took a year for them to call me with a date. I thought, with 600-800 cleaners, plus janitors and employees, they were all filled up, right? Nope. With the instructor’s three new employees (guys he had to train anyway), me, and 2 other guys, we had 6 – enough to give the course. Well, we learned about chemistry and pH and how to identify and select the right stuff for the job, right? One of the cleaners was an independent who had never before received any training. Now, armed with all this new information, he figured out how to save time and money. A few days after the course, I got a call. He wanted me to help him fix a

problem with his 1,000 square foot job. When I got there, I found he had used caustic soda to boost his pH (so he could go faster). This caused the whole area to “brown-out” (turn yellow). I recognized the problem from the class and spent hours with my “spin-bonnet” methods fixing it. When we were through, he asked me, “how much?” On an hourly basis, I told him $750. By the look on his face, I could tell he only charged his client $550. He charged only .55 cents per square foot (easy to get jobs that way!)

He probably did the whole job in less time than it took to fix it and made almost $100 per hour – until he paid me to fix it.

The moral of the story is:

  1. Very few cleaners around Northern New Jersey got trained that year.
  2. Just because someone gets trained doesn’t mean he’s fit for the job.
  3. It’s a good thing I learned how to fix problems.

https://www.procleanersnj.com/

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