[Michael Smallwood]

I was HWE cleaning a carpet yesteday. I was working towards the door and had nearly finished when I reached the main wear area and black spots appeared after the first or second pass. I stopped PDQ.

Upon further investigation I found that the underlay had perished in places and had reduced to a fine black powder. It look like the spots are areas of powder being drawn through the carpet, which is a 15+ years old 80/20 with a secondary backing. It does transfer to a cloth when damp.

I intend to revisit once the carpet has fully dried and use the Envirodri system.

Any other ideas.?

Cheers
Mike

[Jim_77]

don't waste your time trying to brush it out!

stick a sheet of polythene between carpet and underlay, apply spotter/solvent/whatever and extract as normal.  dry vac might help beforehand, depending on what's loose and what's not.  Remove polythene after, otherwise moisture can't travel up/down and could cause probs down the line.


advise customer that if the carpet still has good number of years left in it, to replace the underlay.  Thias will help the carpet last, when the underlay is crushed it's like theyre crushing the carpet straight onto the subfloor which wears it out quicker.

most don't go for this, which is the reason they had it cleaned in the first place rather than replaced it!

[murky]

You will probably find they changed the carpet but not the underlay, just to save a bit of money, underlay should last as long as the carpet easily, unless they had that 'free' underlay fitted with it.

Murky

[Michael Smallwood]

Thanks Guys, Jim your suggestion is so obvious I am annoyed I did not think of it myself.

As a bit more background, I have known the family whose carpet it is for 15 years, and it is old but not badly worn so they may well go for a change of underlay.

Mike

[Dave Whittaker]

http://www.tradepriced.co.uk/own_label_carpet_underlay.html

The 'Gold 100' is quite good stuff and there is scope to earn from it.

Done any basic fitting in the past?