Why Dry Foam is the Best Carpet Cleaning Method

Steam Cleaning Option

What is the best way to clean a carpet? If a steam cleaner was more effective, why wouldn't we offer it. Our reasons for offering dry foam shampoo instead are explained below.

Is Steam Cleaning Faster?

Steam cleaning is quite fast, but only for the person doing it and not for the homeowner who has to wait for it to dry. A carpet steam cleaner takes less time to complete each room, however, their speed is not to your advantage.

A carpet steam cleaner uses much more water when cleaning your carpet and therefore may take longer to dry. This will prevent you from putting everything back where it belongs until the next day. If the carpet is not completely dry and you rest an object on it that contains a stain or dye, there is a high chance these colours will bleed into your carpet and stain it. Dry times are often inconvenient with steam cleaning over dry foam shampoo.

We admit, it takes us longer to complete a carpet cleaning job using dry foam shampoo, but our time is to your advantage, with dry times in as little as 4 hours, instead of steam cleaning which can take as long as 24 hours.

Of course, drying times are very dependant on humidity levels in your house which can speed up or slow down the process. Given the same humidity, dry foam shampoo dries far faster than steam cleaning because there is much less water left in the carpet. Your satisfaction and convenience is our greatest concern which is why we have continued to use dry foam shampoo and not switched to steam cleaning.

Does Steam Clean Better?

First a little unknown fact: Professional steam cleaning does not always use 'steam' which could damage and shrink carpet. Instead, this method often depends on 'warm water' and suction to extract soil and stains from your carpets and upholstery. So why use the word 'steam'? Who would buy 'Warm Water Carpet Cleaning'!

This presents an obvious question that is best answered by your local auto mechanic since he deals with oily grime every day. Imagine him trying to clean his greasy hands with just warm water. Doesn't work very well. Everyone knows oil and water do not mix unless soap is applied. Steam cleaners will remove loose easy dirt from the surface, which gives the appearance of being 'clean', but it is not as effective in removing deep ground in dirt and grim.

Clean Test:
How well are your carpets really cleaned with steam cleaning?
Within several days of some steam cleaning, shadows of former dirty areas will begin to reappear. Within a few weeks, many of these dirty areas may be visible again, but you will just blame yourself, the kids, or pets and not the steam cleaning method.
 

Do Steam Cleaners Use Soap?

The company doing the steam cleaning will usually spray a light mist of soap over your carpet with a sprayer like the one shown here. There is almost no penetrating force behind this spray nozzle so the soap only coats the top surface of the carpet fibers. It does not penetrate deep down where most of the dirt is found.

They will tell you the 'steam' will force the soap deeper but in reality, there is only a fraction of a second for this to happen before the wand (also shown here on the right) is sucking it back up.

So lets ask your local mechanic again, what he thinks. He will tell you that spraying soap on his hands and immediately rinsing it off without scrubbing, only touches the surface of the grim. His hands will still be very dirty. For any soap to clean effectively, it must have an opportunity to penetrate the grease and break down its molecular hold. Soap must be forced deeper into the carpet. No different than your mechanic who has to scrub his hands while applying soap to loosen the bond of grease.

All carpet cleaning soap must be given an opportunity to work. It must also penetrate deep to where most of the dirt is found. Steam cleaning does not scrub and can not accomplish this even if the soap they use is the highest quality. What about the soap manufacturer claims? Their claims are only half the story since they will also tell you that application technique matters as much as their formula ingredients. If you don't apply it properly, it can not work effectively.

 

Dry Foam Shampoo Option - The Best Carpet Cleaning Method

How does dry foam shampoo work?

Once a small amount of water is added to our dry foam shampoo, the resulting foam acts like "tiny sponges" soaking up dirt and grime. However, that is not enough. Our cleaning machine gently pushes these soap sponges deep into the carpet fibers to loosen and capture dirt which can later be extracted. Now your carpets are getting cleaned!

Unlike other extraction methods which depend on warm water which does not mix with oily residue, our dry foam bonds to both large and minute particles of dirt and grease which are then easily removed with our extractor.

Those "tiny foam sponges" stick to the dirt and collect it together making it much easier to extract. Similar to how much easier it would be for you to pick up a cup of spilled marbles then to pick up a cup of spilled salt. Our method turns granular dirt into larger foam 'marbles' which makes it much easier to suck up with our extractor.
 

Our Scrubber

With dry foam shampoo carpet cleaning, your carpets are gently scrubbed before soil extraction. We use a 110 pound industrial shampooer with a 15 inch scrub brush attachment. This method allows us to push foam deep into the carpet fibers to loosen embedded soil so it will not reappear later.

Most carpets have heavy traffic areas which require additional attention. Of course, accidents happen and stains are also a fact of life requiring our specially formulated pre-treatment prior to scrubbing.
 

Our Extractor

Once the carpets are sufficiently deep cleaned, our turbo-vac extractor is then used to finish the job. Our industrial extractor removes all the loosened soil captured in our 'foam sponges' and any excess moisture. This ensures your carpets will be left clean and will also dry quickly.

 

Facts

• Our dry foam shampoo is actually a water based shampoo and not oil based, so it does not leave an oily sticky residue which will cause resoiling.
• Dry Foam Shampoo cleaning is safe for both children and pets
• Regular vacuuming and removing your shoes does help keep your carpets looking better longer
• Renting a machine is an option but has its own disadvantages. By the time you rent the unit, buy the spot lifter and a jug of shampoo, you will not be saving much and you still have to do all of the work yourself.
• Crystal Clean Services will send two qualified technicians to your home, who will move most furniture, clean the areas and replace the furniture using protective pads.