Water use in carpet cleaning
- Manny
- Apr 6, 2016
- 2 min read
Water use in Sunnyvale bay area carpet cleaning
Carpet cleaning has three major cleaning systems. Steam cleaning, dry cleaning, powder cleaning and variations of all these three systems.
Assumptions: The carpet is cleaned about every three months and has no noticeable dirt traffic patterns. 10 by 10 area of carpet.
Dry carpet cleaning systems usually use less water while cleaning the carpet. Dry Cleaning consists of pre-vacuuming the carpet, pretreatment which uses water as a carrier, and agitating the carpet with the machine. During the pre-treatment process the amount of water for a 100 square foot area is usually less than half a gallon of water. Carpets dry within three hours.
Powder cleaning, or dry compound cleaning uses about a quart of a gallon or less of water. Carpets usually dry within an hour. If no water is used it dries immediately. The cleaning compound is costly compared to using water and the cost gets passed to you, or the carpet cleaner will go out of business, someone has to pay for it.
Steam carpet cleaning uses about two gallons of water, with drying times of about three hours or longer. The powerful vacuum sucks up from 50 to 80 percent of the water depending on many variations of pressure, vacuum, jet size on the wand hose diameter, water pressure pump, etc. Technical stuff that will make good reading if you have insomnia.
Even though Dry/bonnet carpet cleaning, cylindrical carpet cleaning use very little water, the brushes and bonnets have to be washed, cleaned before they are used again to avoid cross contamination. it is during the cleaning of the equipment that a lot of water is used. even if the bonnet is put in a washer machine it is still water used to clean the bonnet. Many cleaners will run water over the bonnet to rinse out the bonnet before re-using.
Steam Cleaning truck mounts usually use a high pressure water pump. These pumps are made to use a very small amount of water. As comparison; if you use a garden hose to wash down your drive way, you will use maybe a hundred gallons of water; if you use a high pressure washer for the same area, you'll use about ten gallons. it is these high pressure pumps that we use to clean carpets. they help conserve water.
What to use for carpet cleaning and conserve water? It is going to be about the same overall, it depends on your needs and other factors
