Best home spot cleaner for carpet: Resolve or OxiClean?

Here's a situation: You are eating in your living room in your Edmonds home and you reach for your drink, only to have it slip from your hand and fall on your white carpet. Or for some of you, you walk into the room to find that your toddler has decided that instead of drinking their juice, they will spill it out all over the carpet. What's your first reaction? Well, run to the closet and grab the Resolve, OxiClean, or other similar product of course!

Before you proceed, read below:

Many of these common carpet cleaners can actually end up being more harmful than helpful. In them is what are called optical brighteners which are dangerous to put into carpet, upholstery, or even clothing. Essentially what optical brighteners do is create a "whitening" effect by reflecting more blue light and less yellow. This makes the carpet appear cleaner without actually cleaning. Most importantly, the optical brighteners create unstable dyes in the fibers of the carpet, upholstery or clothing and can cause a bleaching effect. This will rarely happen right when the cleaner is applied, but once something else is mixed with it (solutions from a professional carpet cleaner, another household cleaner, etc), the bleach will seemingly magically appear, leaving you with a permanent spot.At Sno-King Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning, we have two solutions for this. The first is to have us clean for you and as a new customer you will receive a free bottle of our own spot cleaner-free for life! If you want to purchase your own, a good cleaner that we recommend is called Folex. Thank you for reading!

How long should carpets be wet after cleaning?

The honest answer to this question is that it can vary drastically depending on which company has cleaned your carpets.  We often work with clients who tell us stories of their carpet being wet for a full day or two after another company has cleaned.  While there are many reasons why this may be the case, the two main reasons are: improper cleaning technique, and equipment that is not working correctly.  As a result of either of these two problems comes the issues of over-wetting and/or loss of suction. At Sno-King Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning we combat these common issues by having properly trained technicians who also understand their equipment so they are able to identify if it is not working correctly.  We also use high-efficiency air movers while in your home to speed up the dry time.  Lastly, your carpets dry from the bottom up so we always groom your carpets, opening up the fibers so that the air can mover through them and help them dry faster.  To answer the original question, your carpets should be dry within 2-6 hours after we finish cleaning in your residential home or commercial building. If you had a carpet cleaning company clean for you and the carpet were still wet the next day, please contact them to see if they will come fix the issue for free. If they refuse, please feel free to contact us and we will come out as fast as possible to ensure that no damage is done from wet carpets.

Which carpet cleaning method is best?

There are many methods of carpet cleaning available. Maybe you have heard of some of these: bonnet, encapsulation, dry, shampooing, or hot water extraction cleaning (also known as steam cleaning). So which is best for your carpets and how can you be sure? While each method may have applications for different situations, hot water extraction cleaning is the method that we utilize the most at Sno-King and is the one that we believe is the best. There are many reasons that this method is superior to the others, here I will share three.

1) It is recommended by almost every carpet manufacturer

2) When done properly it removes all cleaning solutions used in the carpet

3) It removes more soil from your carpet than the other options

We believe in offering you, our customer, the best method available and that is why we clean your home’s carpet with a truck mounted, hot water extraction method of carpet cleaning.

Cleaners should be clean...right?

Often times in business, the owners are asked questions like, "What are you doing to differentiate yourself from the competition?" For us here at Sno-King Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning, our differentiations are one in the same with common courtesy. How many times have you seen the vehicle of a service company covered in dirt and grime, much like the employee that comes out of that van? Unfortunately, there is a common stereotype with those who work in the carpet cleaning industry, which is not being personable, well-kept or professional looking. While this is an area we try to differentiate ourselves from other companies, it is also how we strive to be courteous on a personal level with our clients. If we are there to clean, we want to be clean. It's as simple as that. Whether we are cleaning couch upholstery in your apartment, all of the tile and grout in your home, or the carpets in a commercial building, our philosophy is the same. Every client deserves a carpet cleaner who treats professionally, fairly, and courteously!

Why remove your shoes before entering a house?

Do you ever get tired of the monotonous task of taking your shoes off when you enter and putting them back on when you leave? Although it may seem pointless, it is doing your carpets more good that you might think. First, there are the obvious reasons: shoes track in dirt and mud, it's polite in other people's homes, and it's just plain more comfortable! In addition to the dirt that gets tracked in, there is much more unseen damage that happens slowly over time. As we all learn in school, the way we see color has much to do with the light that is present and what colors a particular object reflects. This concept plays a large role in the appearance of your carpet. Many times a carpet can look very dirty, but cuts and abrasions by dirt, small rocks and shoes can make it look even more dirty than it actually is. The reason it looks dirty is that when the fibers are damaged, light cannot properly reflect in order to give the intended appearance. In fact, this should be a much bigger concern even than spilling juice or wine, because 79% of the damage done to carpet is done by dry soil!

Taking your shoes off in your home, particularly if you have carpet, is one of our strongest recommendations. Just like many other things in your home, carpet is an investment that you want to last for as long as possible and not wearing shoes indoors will go a long way in prolonging the life of the carpet. Besides, who doesn't like the feeling of warm, soft carpet on their feet?