I live near an area of High End Homes. I have received some calls on Cleaning Orientals, and Antique rugs.. I know you have to know what your doing, and be trained by a master in this field. I know it can be dangerous to your pocketbook if you damage one of these. Any advise or leads to someone who may offer training on this subject...or feedback in general will be appreciated...

www.jondon.com

go to educational products. on page 3 there is a training kit put out buy Lisa Wagner. She is a leader in this area of cleaning/

i seen her ad in the new JonDon catalog, if i were planning on getting into that end of the biz i would def buy her package.

can the Challenger be used effectively & safely on the aforementioned type of rugs?

thanx --- Derek

I have used my Challenger on many oriental rugs. I use the medium thickness glider, as it is less aggressive than the holy glider. On smaller rugs, or those that won't stay in place under the Challenger, I have used my orbital stair machine. This takes longer, but then again, I'm charging 2 1/2 times my
sq. ft. rate for W/W carpeting. If you are able to,
before cleaning, turn the rug over, run your vac over the bottom side to dislodge ground-in soil. This is referred to a dusting.

Would you actually use outsolve? And for delicate rugs what ratio of water to outsolve. Does this apply to silk and wool as well as colorfast?? Thanks

Same ratio. On small, delicate rugs, maybe just the hand orbital with a pad with the cleaner in it.
ALWAYS test for colorfastness. While some orientals lose color, that doesn't mean that the color smears around.

When you turn an Oriental or whatever rug over-to get really good suction, can you use a powerful shop vac to pull out the dust or is just a good brush roller ok. I know there are expensive steroidal vacs out there, but cant splurge yet. What other alternatives to removing this dirt on the backing is there. Thank you..

some use an air compressor...that wouldn't be practical if you're cleaning the rug on-site.

thanx --- Derek.

When you turn a rug over to work on the back, it's not suction doing the work. It's the beater bar or brush roll of an upright vac that is thumping away, forcing particulate matter out of the face of the rug.
A Rugbadger (www.rugbadger.com) does this with much greater results. Might be a good investment if one is going to specialize in cleaning area rugs.