At Linton's Carpet Cleaning we not only specialize in high-quality residential carpet cleaning, but we also offer high-end commercial carpet cleaning to our clients in the Vancouver, Washington area.

Are There Really Differences In Residential and Commercial Carpet Cleaning?

The short answer is yes.

There many similarities between residential carpet cleaning and commercial
carpet cleaning, but there are also some major differences in many cases.

So what are some of the differences?

1. The major difference would be soil load. Soil load is just the amount
of soil that is in the carpet. As you can probably imagine, a business location
that gets hundreds of thousands of people entering it, and walking on their carpets, would probably have a lot more soil in their carpets than the average home.

Not always! LOL. But most of the time.

2. Most residential homes have carpet made out of nylon. Most commercial-grade carpet is made out of polypropylene. This can make a huge difference in how the carpets are cleaned.

3. Almost all residential carpet has a pad underneath it. In most cases, commercial carpet is glued down, either on cement or sometimes even wood, or is made with carpet tiles, which have a very small amount of padding.

This is important to know because it can make a big difference in the ability to get the soil out of your carpet.

When there is NO airflow, or reduced airflow, the ability for a vacuum system to recover is not as efficient and successful. With carpet that has a pad underneath of it there is usually good airflow, which makes it easier for water and soil to be recovered.

But with a lot of commercial glue down carpet, or carpet tiles with thin pans, there is not as much air near the base of the carpet as with carpet that has a pad underneath it. Not having as much air around the base of the carpet can cause "lock down" with a lot of cleaning tools.

This is BAD, very bad, for a vacuum system. Airflow almost ceases to stop and the vacuum pressure is then relieved through a vac relief on the machine. Again, this does not help with the recovery
of water and soil.

4. Dry times. Dry times are always important. Always. And every carpet cleaner should be very aware of dry times - and clients should demand that carpets dry as fast as possible.

Dry times are even more critical in a business environment because there are customers and clients that need to use these carpets.

Customers and clients walking on wet carpets can present a danger, and expose the business to potential lawsuits if any injury occurs because of a slip and fall-related to wet carpets.

Dry times are important!

5. Wicking. Wicking is where soil, that was not extracted, makes it way from below the tip of the fiber to the top of the fiber during the drying process. Any type of carpet can wick, and wicking is very common.

Any carpet cleaner that tells you they never have wicking is either a liar, don't know their facts, or a combination of both. All carpet cleaners have encountered wicking if they have cleaned enough carpets.

Because a vast majority of carpets are made with polypropylene wicking is a bigger issue because this carpet fiber does not hold much moisture.

The moisture more easily makes its way to the base of the carpet and then that moisture, along with any remaining soil, wicks to the surface. Wicking
related to commercial carpet is very common.

We want to make clear that every type of carpet, whether in the residential setting or commercial setting, can encounter these issues. But with commercial carpet they can be more prominent.

1. The RV360. The RV stands for Rotovac. This tool makes over 600 separate cleaning passes a minute.

A minute! The fastest carpet cleaners, using a wand, can make about 30 cleaning passes a minute and they can only do this for a short period of time before they pass out because of exhaustion.

Can carpets be cleaned really well using a wand - absolutely yes! But that is only if the carpet cleaner takes their time and makes the proper cleaning passes and makes enough of those cleaning passes.

With the RV360 a carpet cleaner can make 600 separate cleaning passes a minute ALL DAY LONG because the machine itself does most of the work - not the carpet cleaner.

2. The Bonzer Carpet Cleaning Wand. Now, this might confuse you just a bit because the Bonzer is a wand, but it is NOT the standard carpet cleaning wand. Below you see two pictures of the wands.

The first picture is of the standard carpet cleaning wand, the second picture is the Bonzer Carpet Cleaning wand.

There are major differences in how these two wands work. Both can deliver excellent results, but only one (The Bonzer Wand) can deliver excellent results with the ease that allows the carpet cleaner to maintain very high results throughout the entire cleaning process.

 Also, the Bonzer Power Cleaning Wand offers extremely high flow rates with EXCELLENT water recovery.

This means very aggressive flushing of soil and fast dry times because so much water and soil are recovered.