Hi all, today I cleaned my living room, and I was impressed with the results. The first section was a little sloppy with my passes but as I got the feel of the machine the passes tightend up and I left some nice uniform swirl marks, carpet turned out great! can some one recomend a good vacume that would work well with residential and commercial? (for under $200)
Mark thank you

I use the sanitaire commercial uprightW/bag kit.( the wide one). It does a good job,its tough,and very easy to fix yourself.

I was looking at my carpet this morrning and I noteiced that in some places the top of the fibers are all frayed out it looks kinda bad, is this tip bloom? I used the serch and found some posts on tb , from what I understand you need to use a different kind of pad on certain carpet typs, or use real wet cotton pads with thick glider, is there a book I can buy that tells about carpet typs? I don't know anything about it! I don't even know what kind of carpet I have in my own home, I would be greatfull for any help I could get on this. I want to start doing biussness soon, but I need to be confident that I won't damage carpets! please help. Thanks

For people who feel they have caused tip bloom, or who are concerned that they may, Tuway Thinones seem to be the pad of choice. My understanding (I've never used them) is that they are smoother than the all-terrycloth pad, since they contain some percentage of a synthetic fiber. As a result, they can be expected to be somewhat less soil-absorbent than an all-cotton pad. Their website is
www.tuwaymops.com. Derek, who posts here frequently, speaks highly of them. I have been cleaning carpets for 10 years using JUST OP machines -- Oreck machines for 3 years, followed by Challengers for 7 years -- and I have yet to have a customer call me back after a cleaning and tell me that her carpet looks fuzzy and/or funny. So I wouldn't let this single occurence set you back too far.

I have distorted an olefin weave? during spotting,but I prequalified the customer first..turned out the spot was a burn from a dropped iron..the crazy part is,I distorted it away..lol. customer was very happy,and so was I,I got to abuse the hell outa that freakin olefin,and still looked like a hero.

One of the rooms of the job I did the other day was a shag about ten years old.

I used a very wet pad and a medium sized glider and kept it moving at a quick pace.

I cleaned a different room today useing the thick glider and a much wetter pad, the carpet turned out nice and I don't see any frayed out spots, when I did my living yesterday it was completly dry in 15 min, I think I ringed the pad out to much , and perhaps that is what caused the tip bloom in spots, can somebody tell me what carpet typs are more sensitive to tip bloom ? (so I can know when to be carfull)
Thanks Guys!

Andy, the TipBloom was due to your being completely new to OP, as i'm sure you realize.

always keep the Challenger moving. if dried in 15 minutes the pads were definitely being run on the VERY dry side...not good.

any cut pile carpet can T.B. if the operator is not careful. in some homes you will see a newer carpet that looks like the 1970's "shag" style carpets. this is called a Frieze. these newer Frieze's are worrisome (to me and some others anyways), so we use the Tuway ThinOne pads instead of cotton. keep the pad wet (not soaked) and use a glider. eventually you will be able to clean these type carpets without the use of a glider, but only when you're comfortable enough to try it. heck you might even eventually use cotton pads on Frieze's like the OP pro's do...maybe someday i will to :)

hope this helps, any other questions, ask away --- Derek.

Thanks for the advise Derek,

Andy,
You asked how to learn to identify carpet types and fibres.
The best place to start is to go to a carpet showroom. Here in Australia their sample pieces all have written on the back what type of fibre the carpet is e.g. 100% nylon, e.g. 80% wool and 20% olefin etcc....
Some of them even have on what style of carpet it is e.g. berber.

Often the carpet showrooms here sell off the samples from discontinued carpets for a dollar or two. When I first started out I bought about 25 samples with different fibres and weaves, then took them home and tested myself. The answers on the back.

Here the majority of carpet is wool, nylon or polyprop or a mixture of these. I understand there is not much wool in the US. On wool and some nylons I just make sure there is plenty of pre-spray and start with either a cotton pad with the thick solid glider or a Tuway Thin One. Remember, you don't need maximum agitation on every carpet. If the carpet is very lightly soiled and say a new wool carpet I might even use a glider with the Tuway Thin One as I only want slight agitation since new wool will fuzz up really easily.

The glider has two functions.
1. To enable the machine to move smoothly and glide over the carpet without scrunching up the cotton pad.
2. To enable you to vary the degree of agitation that you are applying. With the thicker solid glider you are applying less agitation than with the thinner solid glider which in turn applies less agitation than with the holey glider.
I also make up my own gliders out of those cheap PVC table place mats. The coloured side is very smooth and the other side rougher. I just stick some small bits of velcro on the rough side. These home- made gliders allow a different level of agitation again. Some I make solid and others I make in a donut shape. The other material that could be used for gliders is those very very thin flexible smooth sided synthetic kitchen chopping boards.
Regards,
Neil