Immediately after the introduction of these advanced nylon fibers, carpet cleaning detergent formulators had to reformulate their detergents to have a pH of 10 or less. There was a scramble for all those companies who cleaned residential carpet, but it did not affect my cleaning company that much, because 80+% of the carpet we cleaned was multi-family housing and commercial. On day one of the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC), Carpet Cleaning Technician (CCT) classes I teach, I tell my students that I could teach them how to clean carpet in just a few hours. The reasons why we clean carpet the way we do, takes a bit longer. On day two of the class, I will start by asking the students what one or two things they learned new or will make their jobs easier. More often than not, students reply, “I had no idea there was this much to know about carpet!” Because it’s just carpet. Also, the class is taught according to ANSI/ IICRC S100 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Cleaning of Textile Floor Coverings. Did you know there was such a document? The very first carpet cleaning standard was published November 1, 1991. This came about after what some may say was a condescending challenge to what
some at the time called us “rug- suckers and shampoo slingers.” It came from the carpet manufacturers through their spokespeople of the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) at an event where the IICUC (the predecessor of the IICRC) board of directors and other who’s who of the carpet cleaning industry were gathered in St. Pete Beach, FL for a Board of Directors meeting. The challenge came across, in my opinion, as more of a threat when the CRI said, in essence, “you folks come up with a standard on how carpet should be cleaned, or we will.” Within one year, the standard was published and updates to that standard have been made over the years with the 7th edition published in 2021. There is a lot more history I could cover such as the CRI Seal of Approval program that started testing the efficacy of detergents, equipment and methods of cleaning, but that is another article in and of itself. Bottom line, professional carpet cleaning is rocket science, even though It’s just carpet. In the next part of this article, I will share information from the 14 chapters in my Carpet Cleaning Technician manual that includes: The Fiber Basics, The Chemistry of Cleaning, Soil Removal Step, Spot Stain and Wicking, and Groom and Dry...
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