Once in a Great While...

CARPET ANOMALIES Sometimes, no matter what we do, carpet ends up just not coming out right. This is one reason we perform a CARPET EVALUATION. This evaluation will uncover the vast majority of problems so you can decide what you want to do about them. Here, we'll go over some common problems that occur. More correctly, problems that are present that may only become obvious once a carpet is cleaned. NAP REVERSAL When carpeting is manufactured, it's usually in 12-foot rolls, 120 feet or so long. No matter what type of carpet it is, the pile yarns do not end up standing perfectly vertically straight. Instead, they usually "lay" in one direction or another uniformly on the roll. When carpet is first installed, oftentimes the installer has to piece together sections to match the dimensions of a room. When the carpet is brand new, this "lay" may not be as obvious to the untrained eye. The newly bright dyes and overall sheen of the carpet are what the new owner sees. As carpet wears, the lay of the carpet may begin to get more obvious. Frequently, this may be described as a "dirty" area of the carpet, or "worn" area of the carpet. In actuality, because the initial installer didn't correctly match up sections of the carpet, strips of it may be pieced in backward, or 90-degrees to what it should have been. Because of this, the yarns in the two adjoining sections reflect light at a different angle from each other. One side looks "brighter" than the other. The darker side is often perceived as "dirty". Think of it in terms of a freeway at night. If you stand on an overpass and picture traffic coming toward you and traffic going away as two strips of carpet, you'd see bright headlights on one side and darker taillights on the other side. Now, if you were able to turn the cars on the right 180 degrees so they are coming toward you, the entire freeway would be bright headlights. But, you can't, so half of it is bright, and half is not as bright. That's nap reversal. Unless you have a contractor's license, or are otherwise skilled at carpet seaming and installation, about the only possible solution is to have an installer break the seam and pull up the offending section, flip it around and reinstall it. That's easier said than done, since all sections are neither perfectly cut, nor are they uniform. Even a NEW section of carpet will invariably still look brighter because it is less abraded than the old. Or, one could just ignore it and try to live with it. Sometimes, it's better not to know why a part of it looks different. Once you are told that whole section is installed backward, you'll see it every time you walk into the room after that. Believe me. This is not a carpet cleaning problem. It is a carpet installation problem. DELAMINATION After a carpet has been around for awhile, especially if it's had a lot of heavy dragging or wheeled traffic over it, the layer of adhesive that holds the bottom backing to the upper web of the carpet may begin to deteriorate allowing the "sandwich" of webbing and backing to separate from each other. This may show up as wrinkling initially. You can confirm it's delamination by gently pulling upward on both the suspect area and an area not suspected. The suspected area will feel lighter, thinner while the good area will feel stiffer and connected to the floor. When a carpet delaminates, it's time to replace. It's actually PAST time to replace, but it is definitely a warning sign. The delaminated area is more prone to splitting, since it's no longer a part of the stiffer, stronger backing. The area can also begin to get "wavy" or bumpy. This is a definite safety hazard, especially for young kids and older adults. Someone shuffling along can cause the area to lift and form an instant hump in front of their foot, tripping the person passing over it. It's all "downhill" from there. If it's noticed early, it's possible to make stop-gap repairs by slitting open the top layer, then using a hot glue gun to glue it back down to the backing. (Done by a professional, experienced in such repairs). Whose problem is it? A good pre-inspection should reveal such areas. A CARPET EVALUATION will uncover such a problem before it becomes major. SEAM SPLITTING When a seam is finished correctly, in cut, with proper nap direction, clean edges, well-glued, etc., you'll never know it's there. When not done right, it will appear as an indistinct line in the carpet, or worse yet, it will raise it's existence by becoming unglued and get progressively worse and more hazardous with time. With some more unusual carpets, too much moisture can cause the backing or web of the carpet to shrink, which in turn can increase strain on seams, leading to splitting. Axminster carpet is such a type. It is also VERY expensive carpeting, and generally it's owners DO KNOW when they own it. Otherwise, with most carpet in use today, such shrinkage is not a common problem. Some clients, finding a splitting seam (most often - a bad installation), have a tendency to simply push the seam edge back down, brush it out with their fingers and pretend it's not there. Again, it will only get worse with time, and if caught early enough, is a relatively simple fix. Ignored, such a seam can again cause catastrophic and violent falls, especially to folks unaware of it's condition. A deteriorating seam may or may not be detected in a preinspection, since seams can literally be located anywhere the carpet is installed. If I encounter either a split or weak seam, or delamination in my own preinspection and the owner chooses not to say anything about it even though I asked, there is a distinct possibility that I will not begin work until such time as the defect is repaired. There are any number of cases where a cleaner who failed to find such a defect encountered it while cleaning later, only to be blamed for it and stuck with an unjustified repair bill. Whose problem is it? If you knew about it and said nothing when asked about existing problems, don't expect a complete home cleaning. At the very least, we will obtain a waiver if you want the area cleaned, or you can choose for us to clean around it. STRETCHED CARPET This anomaly is more common in older carpet. It can be caused by incorrect installation, lower-quality carpet, abuse of the carpet (usually by dragging very heavy objects - leading to backing damage), or simply, the carpet just felt like stretching. It's most common in higher-traffic areas but can occur almost anywhere. It makes itself known by the appearance of long, raised waves across the carpet. Left neglected, this condition leads to wear and damage down the road. Constant rippling movement from traffic will lead to delamination (separation of the backing). The fiber and yarn at the top of the ripple(s) will get more wear than the rest, so if left too long, once carpet is restretched and reinstalled, the this wear will be visible as a long balding area. This may be an installation problem, but is usually attributable to some other factor. SOME carpet will ripple right after cleaning, but will flatten back out after drying. This is NOT unusual, but there is a remote possiblity the carpet will not fully return to it's former appearance. If this happens, it indicates the carpet tension should be professionally checked, as it may have stretched since installation. It is very likely that these waves may be more noticeable to the eye after cleaning, since the cleaned carpet around it will be very uniform in appearance. After traffic is applied once more, the area will start to look as it did before cleaning. Why does this occur? You will most often see this on glued down carpet with rubber backing. The backing is part of the carpet, as opposed to residential carpet with separate pad. The rubber used in the backing is expensive and manufacturers add filler materials such as clay, kaolin or diatomaceous earth. Normally you won't know it's there, but if the carpet is wet, some moisture will penetrate into the rubber, and in turn the filler. These fillers happen to swell when wet, causing carpet to stretch. In almost all cases, this is considered NORMAL. Once dry, the fillers and rubber will return to the original flat condition, as will the attached carpet. CARPET FADING While a lot of carpet is for all intents and purposes colorfast, most of the nylon carpeting installed is still subject to fading of the dyes used to color it. That may be nylon's biggest "minus", but the pluses far outweigh it. It can always be spot dyed or re-dyed as long as the fibers are in good shape. It's resiliency and resistance to failure are favored by cleaners over any other fiber. Because the dye is on the surface of most nylon carpet fibers, rather than IN the fiber, it's subject to effects of sunlight, fluorescent lighting, bleaching and similar. Some household cleaners - even those sold and recommended for use on carpet - leave it in a condition which, when combined with sunlight or UV rays, reacts to cause dye fading. Even fumes from gas heat registers can react with dyes to cause what is known as "fume fading" - most often seen as a green tint in the carpet surrounding them. Oftentimes, even under light to moderate soiling conditions, fading can lay hidden from view until the carpet is cleaned. Sometimes a chemical can release the dyes from the dye sites on the fibers, without actually removing them. Cleaning then rinses them away and you end up with a discoloration. These are pre-existing conditions and a carpet care technician can do nothing to avoid them. They will exist whether we clean the carpet - or you clean it, unfortunately. Some consumer carpet cleaning chemicals are overused to the point they become highly concentrated in one area of the carpet. They may seem to work initially, but leave a sticky residue behind. This attracts new soiling, so you use more of the cleaner. This cycle goes on for perhaps months - even years. Meanwhile, the now concentrated chemical is harming your carpet dyes. The blues are first to go. In a brown or off-white carpet, this leaves the yellow and red dyes behind, making the area appear orange. Sometimes bright orange. It's merely the loss of blue dye that give this color and often children or "someone" is blamed for spilling drinks, etc. Sometimes, carpet cleaners are blamed, because the area is covered with soil so the loss is not noticed until after the cleaning. This is a pre-existing problem and nothing anyone can do will keep it from becoming apparent - until YOU stop using the harmful chemical. Most veteran cleaners are well aware of which ones are most noted for this, and the smart ones will ask you if you use these on your carpet, so I won't mention them here. Fading being a loss of color, another important cause of fading is simply foot traffic. Traffic literally scrapes the surface of the fibers away, along with the dyes they held, leaving the area appear lighter in color than when new. STAINS This is the catchall. Remember that a stain is a spot which is not removed by normal cleaning and cleaning agents. Examples would be kids' drinks (almost any colored drinks), coffees, teas, asphalt, motor oil, mustard, fingernail polish. We're talking about color that is added to the carpet, not taken away as in bleaching or fading. Professional cleaners will carry an extensive spotting kit and will attempt to remove such stains using a progressive succession of spotting agents, from the least drastic to the most powerful. Not all stains will be removed. I've yet to meet a homeowner who actually knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what every spot and stain on their carpet was. What you need to know is - once the professional cleaner has exhausted the conventional methods of stain removal, what's left are unconventional methods, and then a bonded insert, or patch. Depending on WHAT the stain is - which you may not even have a clue - as well as: How long it's been there; How much was spilled; What cleaning chemicals you tried on it; If a drink - was it hot or cold when spilled; Whether or not you rubbed it in deeper; etc., a removeable spot can easily be turned into an unremoveable stain. For instance, mustard, along with a few other substances, are what is known as 'disperse dyes'. This means the harder you rub to remove it, the stronger the bond of the dye with the fiber. Very specific chemicals are needed to unlock them from the fibers, provided other chemicals weren't used previously. Bottom line? If a spill you try to clean seems to be turning into a stain - call a professional before you attempt further removal or add ANYTHING to compound the problem. POOLING or SHADING This can be caused by too high a heat, especially on older, NON-NYLON carpet. Apparent pooling/shading can also be caused by patched-in carpet repairs. This is basically nap reversal in another form. It can also appear after abnormal abrasion to one area of the carpet. It can also occur more or less spontaneously and for reasons unknown on carpet - usually located in high traffic areas, but not always. For some as yet unknown reason(s), large patches of carpet yarns seem to change direction as a mass, leaving the area looking wet, thus the term "pooling". Also See ABRASION ABRASION Of course, this is caused by wear. Either from foot traffic over the area, or from soil buildup due to insufficient cleaning, or due to fibers and yarns rubbing against each other - or any combination of these. Carpet in main traffic paths will become abraded much more quickly than other carpet, which is a very strong reason for regular cleaning. Once started, the buildup of abrasives will cause the area to deteriorate quickly and the damage is permanent. Fibers that are damaged will begin to damage other fibers as well. Carpet that is overly abraded takes on a dull, grayed-out appearance after the shiny fiber surfaces are rubbed rough. Because not as much light is being reflected back to the observer, the area looks darker or dirtier, leading one to believe it's dirty. Because the area reflects light differently, even the color tone of the patch might look like a large stain. This is a permanent condition. Compare it to frosted glass versus clear glass. The frosted glass looks either lighter or darker because the light is more diffused. The bad news is: An unthinking, untrained technician would also believe this and would then go to work to "clean up the area". This would only lead to yet more abrasion, so the area would only continue to get duller and dirtier looking, even though it might be perfectly clean. This means more abrasion, and more fuzzing of yarns, making the problem even more visible. The easiest and best way to detect both abrasion (and nap reversal), is to hold a high-intensity light source over the area. If it truly is dirty, then it will look dirty under the light. If it can't be seen under the bright light, but only when the light is off, it's either nap reversal or abrasion. (Protectant applied at the very first signs of abrasion helps to slow the rate of wear.) FILTRATION SOILING Because today's houses are built tighter and more energy-efficient, more and more is seen of this carpet culprit. Air is very invasive. Even though exterior walls may be fairly air tight, interior walls are generally not finished right down to the absolute floor. There is usually 1/4-1/2 inch of space at the bottom of most interior walls, hidden behind the baseboards (I also used to do home repairs, so I assure you this is true). That gap is usually covered over with baseboard or molding, under or against which the carpet is installed or butted up to. Because of this construction, the interior walls together become one large chimney, either moving air into the house or out of it. The small remaining gap under the baseboards speeds up the flow of air, and smashes any pollutants into the carpet, which is acting as an unintentional air filter. Hence the name, filtration soiling. The direction generally depends upon how tightly the rest of the house is built, and whether the air handling system (heat pump, furnace, air conditioner) is pushing air out, pulling it in, or is neutral in pressure relative to the rest of the house. If it's neutral, there should not be much soiling. However, often there is a slight net vacuum which causes renegade air to travel through the eave vents, through the attic space, down the interior walls, then finally under the walls and through the adjacent carpet before hitting the inside house air. As it goes through the carpet, the pollutants and other contaminants it picks up along the way are deposited along the edge of the carpet. When it does this, a dark, oily, tenacious type of stain between 1-3 inches wide appears on the carpet along the base of the interior walls, and even including steps, with certain types of construction or floorplans. Because only the first 1-3 inches of carpet from the wall is inadvertently being used as an air filter for the whole house, the pollutants and contaminants there are very concentrated and pronounced. It often includes fireplace soot and creosote, sucked in from under the eaves, near the chimney - things one normally doesn't expect to find INSIDE a house. Unfortunately, these "filtration soils" can sit there for years, building up in ever-hardening, multiple layers. Because they are most often found in hallways which are already high traffic areas, the normal soiling often blends with the edge filtration soils and their existence is even better hidden, until you call in a carpet cleaner. I've had people in the past infer that we put it there, because they never noticed it before. Again, a good preinspection by a trained technician will usually detect this problem. Again, a good strong light source will make it very obvious. Here's the problem that arises. Filtration soiling will usually NOT RESPOND TO NORMAL CLEANING. The stains are so tenacious, that often only heavy agitation with special chemicals will remove it satisfactorily. These chemicals, unfortunately, are not designed for household nylon, new-generation carpets, and some of them WILL VOID YOUR CARPET WARRANTY. Newer generation carpeting is okay UP TO a pH of about 10. The chemicals used that are most effective on filtration soiling are of a pH that can be between 10.5 and 12 , or in layman's terms, 5 to 100 TIMES stronger than recommended on most newer carpets. Each increase in a whole pH number being about 10-fold more than the last. There are a couple of products now coming on the professional market that purport to remove these stains without exceeding safe pH levels. They may or may not work on all types of filtration soiling. So, you can live with your carpet, knowing it has filtration soiling stains, or you can elect to have the technician, with proper documentation, attempt to remove it as best as possible, and know that your warranty may be voided in doing so. Always clarify this with the technician. If in doubt, have the technician PROVE the pH to you, as ALL competent technicians should always have pH test paper on hand. TACH Cleaning Co. does carry this tool. Although companies and technicians come up with different formulations that are supposed to be a solution to this type of soiling, what works in one part of the country doesn't necessarily work in another. I've tried formulations that other technicians back East swear by, with poor to no improvement. Heavy agitation of the amount required to remove filtration soiling, often leads to fuzzing of the carpet yarns along the walls. So, this is NOT an acceptable solution. In anticipation of some great future discovery that is both effective on ALL FILTRATION SOILING, as well as SAFE for the carpet in question, I usually advise the client of what I found, what caused it, and the fact it is on-going. I also tell them I may not be able to remove it without causing either obvious or hidden damage to the original carpet it is attached to. The decision to leave it as is, or to try to remove it is then up to the client. After all, until the home construction design flaw that is CAUSING the stain is cured, the problem will be ON-GOING, and any attempts to remove the stains are only temporary. QUESTIONS? That's pretty much all the information you would need to know in order to make an intelligent choice when you're ready for carpet cleaning. If you have questions which haven't been addressed here, please feel free to call me in Salem, Oregon at (503) 581-8587 I will do my best to answer it or to at least find the answer for you. Frank Nihei, Owner TACH Cleaning Co. REMEMBER: Things aren't always as they appear to be! Return to Main Guide Page All Site Contents Copyright ©1997-2007, Frank Nihei, TACH Cleaning Co.