Carpet Cleaning Equipment

Guide to Carpet Cleaning Equipment

Portable carpet extractors or a carpet cleaning truck mount, choose the right carpet cleaners.
By Jeff Copeland

	Intro to Carpet Cleaning Machines Portable carpet cleaning equipment works for small jobs and tight spaces. Professional carpet cleaners use high-powered carpet cleaning machines mounted in vans. Clients increasingly demand environmentally friendly carpet cleaning fluids.

We call them carpet steam cleaners, but steam doesn't really power carpet cleaning - it's sprayed hot water and detergents sucked up by a powerful vacuum that makes a modern carpet cleaning machine.  If you're looking for carpet cleaning equipment for your maintenance crew or to start a business cleaning carpet, here's the down and dirty on professional carpet cleaning machines:

1. Portable carpet cleaners (or portable carpet extractors, as they're known in the trade), are one-person carpet cleaning machines for small jobs or tight spaces.
2. For powerful, large-scale carpet cleaning, truck-mount equipment runs on an engine from outside the building.
3. Carpet cleaning detergents and solvents come in a wide variety for specific types of gunk and grime and types of carpeting.

Action Steps

The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Portable carpet extractors A portable carpet cleaning equipment unit rolls on wheels and contains internal tanks for clean hot water, dirty recovered water and detergent, plus pumps and a vacuum motor. The operator moves a vacuum-cleaner style wand across the carpet or, for heavier jobs, a head with rotating brushes.

I recommend:  See a selection of portable carpet extractors at Jon-Don or J.C. Carpet & Service Products or check carpet cleaning machine makers Hydramaster and Prochem.  For a lightweight carpet cleaning machine with a rotating head, see Rotovac.

Truck-mount carpet cleaning equipment Built for large commercial jobs, truck mount carpet cleaners are powerful enough to bring high pressure hot water and vacuum through hundreds of feet of hose run from a parked van to one or two wand operators inside. These big carpet cleaning machines come in two configurations: Slide-in models run on their own engines and can be moved from van to van while van-powered models are built in, running off a drive shaft belted to the van engine and piped into the van's coolant system.

I recommend:  Get a run-down of the pro's and con's of the two types of truck-mount carpet cleaning at Hydramaster.  Compare carpet cleaning truck-mount packages at Cleanco, Steamway, Prochem, Hydramaster and Rotovac.  Find used truck-mount carpet cleaning equipment for sale at Kleen Kuip Supply Mart.

Carpet cleaning detergents and other liquids Professional carpet cleaners apply a wide range of carpet cleaning liquids as pre-sprays, detergents, spot-removers and deodorants, in different formulations for synthetic or wool carpeting, and for different types of dirt, spills or chewing gum entanglements. As customers increasingly demand green products, the industry has come up with environmentally friendly solutions for cleaning carpet, too.

I recommend:  Prochem and Hydramaster carry their own lines of chemicals for carpet cleaning machines.  Also try Fabpro and Chemspec and, for green products, Organic Compounds.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Carpet cleaning machines can also pump out water for flood cleanup; water damage restoration is a profitable business for many carpet cleaners.
• Another carpet cleaning machine to consider: a portable drier for quick drying at the end of carpet cleaning jobs.