Pet odor in carpet in warmer weather

Have you ever noticed that your house starts to smells like pet odor in the spring or summer when the weather gets warmer? That's likely because a pet had an accident in the winter and it's been sitting there waiting to be fed by humidity! Some of the bacteria in urine is fed by moisture, so that's why pet stains will start to smell more when it's warmer and more humid outside.

If you need professional cleaning for pet stains or odor, we are the ones to call! Pet stain and odor removal is our specialty, and we have the most thorough methods in the industry. Call, text or email to talk to us and set up an appointment today!

Best time of year to clean carpet

Often times, carpet cleaning businesses are most busy in the spring and summer. Any idea why? It's usually because of the idea that the carpet will dry faster when it is warmer outside. There is some truth to this, but only if the cleaner isn't doing everything possible to dry the carpet quickly. 

At Sno-King, we use several high-efficiency fans on every job to ensure quick dry times. We recognize that your carpet being wet is an inconvenience to you and your family. So our carpet drying times range anywhere from 1-5 hours depending on the type of carpet. By doing this, we can achieve quick dry times in any time of year!

Best spot cleaner for carpet

What's the best spot cleaning product for carpet? Is it Resolve, OxiClean, or something else? Well...the answer is definitely something else! The two mentioned above have what's called "optical brighteners." These are disguised in the ingredient list with really long names, but essentially what they do is make the carpet look brighter so it looks clean. However, they're not actually cleaning. Over time they can make the dye in the carpet unstable, leaving it susceptible to bleaching.

For store bought cleaners, we recommend using Folex. But if you hire us, we give you a free lifetime supply of our Spot Out spot cleaner! Even if we're not at your place to clean, we'll just drop one off at no charge!

Why take your shoes off inside?

In many other countries, taking your shoes off upon entering a home is commonplace. Not only is it nice to do, but it's good for the air quality of the house residents and guests. Along with regular vacuuming and regular maintenance carpet cleaning, this is one of the best ways to keep your carpet looking fresh. See the WSJ article below to learn more!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-it-healthier-to-remove-your-shoes-at-home-1491649200

How to clean tile and grout

Although it's not in our name, one of the services we provide is cleaning and sealing tile and grout. Whether it's on the floor, countertop, walls, shower, tub surround, or anywhere else that tile may be, we can clean it. We can even clean outdoor tile!

A tip for homeowner: don't mop tile! Mopping just takes the dirt, combines it with water, and then pushes the dirty muck into the grout lines. Over time this will turn the grout brown or black and the build up can be hard to remove. However, as you can see below, our professional equipment can still help! If you have any questions about tile cleaning, feel free to ask us, or we can stop by for a free inspection.

Best vacuum for household use?

Customers are often asking us "What vacuum should I buy?" Well, it depends on what your budget is, but we can certainly give some helpful guidelines. 

• Don't buy a Rumba or other small vacuum. Although they are wonderfully automated, they are not very effective. Think about it...if all the dirt and debris they pick up can fit in that tiny little machine, is it really cleaning up very much? Also, they don't have the suction or brush power required to do a proper vacuuming job.

• The flashy $500+ vacuums are not worth the money. Our high end commercial vacuums are about $500 and massively outperform the fancy looking ones you see at the store.

• If you need suggestions on specific vacuums, please feel free to contact us! We're always happy to help.

How intrusive is our carpet cleaning process?

Many times when you are having work done on your house, there is a concern of how intrusive the workers will be. With carpet cleaning, it's certainly understandable to be concerned about the carpet cleaning machine making noise, or all the equipment taking up a lot of space in your home. 

"You're never in our way, because we are in your home." That is our mentality when you hire us to clean your carpet, upholstery or tile. The machine that we use is mounted inside our van, so we don't bring a large, loud carpet cleaning machine into your home. Rather, we just have our hoses and some other tools that we try to keep all within a small area so they're not in your way.

Whether you need carpet, tile or upholstery cleaning, we'll always do our best to accommodate your space and make sure we don't intrude any more than necessary!

What to do if spots don't come out of your carpet

Do you have spots in your carpet or upholstery that just won't come out? Maybe you have tried yourself, or maybe you have hired a company, and they still won't come out. Well, what do you do? Call us! We just cleaned carpet for a client in Mukilteo the other day who said she had hired two professional carpet cleaning companies and they couldn't get the spots out of her carpet. But when we removed the spots she was amazed!

Even if you've hired a carpet cleaner in the past, it might be worth having us stop by for a free inspection to see if we think we can get the spots out! Contact us for a free quote.

Carpet is wet too long after cleaning

Have you ever had your carpet cleaned, and then woken up the next morning to still wet carpet? This is a sure sign that the cleaning was not properly done! Typically, our dry times are no more than 8 hours. A few more hours doesn't cause serious concern, but mold can begin growing between 24-48 hours. 

If you have your carpet cleaned and it does not dry quickly, we can come in and do a proper extraction of the water, as well as put high efficiency fans down to speed dry the carpet. 

Safe carpet cleaning chemicals?

We often get questions about which products we use and how safe they are. This is, understandably, of high concern to people, particularly those with children and pets in the home. In our industry, we are required to keep SDS (Safety Data Sheet) binders that have information for every single product on our van. Unfortunately, companies aren't always diligent about knowing how safe their carpet cleaners are.

At Sno-King Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning, everything we use is non-toxic (so long as they're not ingested). Also, because of the process of carpet, upholstery and tile cleaning that we use, there's only water left behind when we are done, because we neutralize the pH value when cleaning. So you don't have to worry about your children rolling on the freshly cleaned carpet, or pets sleeping on it. In fact, it can actually help them breathe better by unclogging all the dust and debri in the carpet!