This is from a dealer who needed some insight to a problem and complaint filed by his customer after they had the carpet his store sold them cleaned. The carpet is a very light colored polypropylene berber with dark flecks that was installed in the spring of 2002. He said the customer was very pleased with the carpet until they decided to have it cleaned about a year after it was installed. They had a carpet cleaner come out and steam ( hot water extraction) clean the carpet. The customer said the carpet looked great when the cleaners left. After the carpet dried they saw light brown stains in various areas of the room. They reported this condition to the cleaning company who came back out and re-cleaned the carpet. The original “stains” went away but new “stains” appeared in different areas. The customer called the dealer because they thought the carpet must be defective.

The dealer went out to look at the carpet but had no idea what might have happened and couldn’t figure it out. He told his customer that he felt it had to be something the carpet cleaner did because the “stains” were not there before the carpet was cleaned, they showed up after the first cleaning, they went away after the second cleaning and new ones showed up again, in different places after the second cleaning. He also said that it appeared to him that some of the “stains” had a perfectly straight edge. He wanted to know what I thought.

First of all let me explain what a stain is and that this carpet was not stained. A stain is caused by something contacting the carpet, for example grape juice, black coffee, iodine, kool aid, mustard or a similar acid based agent. Stains can also be caused by a chemical cleaner, bleach, benzoyl peroxide or other oxidizing agent or color altering chemical. Stains are permanent. They change or alter the color of a carpet and they are near impossible to clean out. Substances that stain nylon carpet will have virtually no affect on polypropylene carpet because it is not affected by water based agents and it can’t be dyed by acid based substances. There may be exceptions to these statements but they would be in the most extreme and unique cases, which this was not. This was a polypropylene carpet that was cleaned, dark spots appeared and were removed by a subsequent cleaning. Spots can be removed, staining would have remained.

Second, the dark areas, came out with cleaning. Staining as we said is very often permanent. Spots or dark soiling can be removed. This carpet released the dark marks only to have them appear elsewhere after the second cleaning. The original spots are not moving around; new dark spots were created.

Third, the dark marks appeared to have a straight edge, the dealer said. This indicates something fairly common with hot water extraction cleaning - streaks. Streaks can be caused by clogged spray jets, clogged vacuum orifices and improper wand stroke patterns. Since the carpet was polypropylene, which hates water, the carpet may have been overwet as well, water could move out from the side of the wand and if the operator did not make adequate extraction strokes to remove the water streaks could have been caused. On this type of carpet these marks can be easily removed. For them to appear on a fairly new carpet, go away only to have them appear again somewhere else, would certainly be frustrating to the consumer. We don’t know what if any comments were made to the consumer by the cleaner about this condition either - he may have implicated the carpet. The cleaner may have been frustrated as well, not known exactly how they could have caused this condition and mentioned that the carpet must be defective - it wouldn’t be the first time this happened.

So, what’s the answer? This is primarily a cleaning problem with possibly some influence by the manufacturer. I say this because it is possible that the carpet, made from polypropylene fiber, had excessive yarn lubricant left on it from the fiber extrusion process. This substance, in conjunction with the cleaning agents and any pre-conditioners which may have been used on the carpet could create a problem. The lubricant and the additional cleaning agents may have caused the dark marks. Correcting the situation is easy, the cleaner just has to rinse the carpet with clear, hot water, not re-clean it with any cleaning agents again, to purge everything from the carpet. This will remove the dark spots and any other residues in the carpet. In this respect polypropylene is very easy to service. There is no defect in the carpet, this is not the dealers fault and there’s nothing going on here that can’t be easily corrected.

This was not a mystery, most carpet problems aren’t, you just have to know what’ going on, what the carpet is telling you and how to interpret it. The carpet never lies.

If you have a question, concern or problem you need help with, call me, it doesn’t cost anything to ask a question. We can help you just like we did this dealer.