carpet cleaning an rv

anon125 wrote:
hubby is wary of having a wet/damp carpet in the MH. damage?
thanks all

Partly a question of how much water, partly what you might know about construction. I watched how my MH was made, carpets were laid over water resistant materials. But the furnishings/cabinets on the floor in carpeted areas are installed over the carpet, so I will not put much water close to those fixtures.

Not all manufacturers do the same thing, so if the carpet is atop bare particle board, yes I would worry about getting it too wet.

Another vote for the Bissell "Green Machine". We inherited ours when son and d-i-l moved to a country with 240V power!

With two elderly Labradors who often eat too quickly or eat things they shouldn't, up-chucks are a regular part of life! They're usually only over a small area, so the Green Machine is fine.

In our 32' MH (two slides), the various areas of carpet aren't big enough to use anything as big as a rental Rug Doctor, so we just take the Green Machine along with us on trips, and I also use it to shampoo the RV carpet at home. Takes about 45 minutes to do it all.

I've used a rental carpet cleaner with great success. Like others, I was wary of the moisture damaging cabinets or the subfloor. So I would get as much out with the machine as possible, then set up fans on the carpet for a good 24 hours. We get a lot of 100+ days here, so that also helped!

Seemed to work out okay, no moisture damage a could see.

Thanks all

Amazing, we get ours kinda dirty and I use Resolve or the Target or WalMart brands and it does a great job. Have done this for years many RV's.

Before we got rid of all the carpet and replaced it with laminate we had it cleaned a few times by companies like Stanley Steamer. We usually did it ourselves though. The rental unit that seemed to be the best was Rug Doctor.

I see you have a Winnebago product. When we took the carpet and pad up we found that Winnebago used a pad with a plastic film water barrier laminated to the top. There was no issue with water from the cleaning process causing a problem.

thanks

I professionally clean upholstery, that is similar to carpet cleaning except we have more fiber types to worry about. I've also cleaned my home carpets for the last 30 years.

I would use a professional extractor, like a rental unit if I didn't have my own.

I would also use a carpet shampoo. It helps break the bond between the fibers and the soiling.

The basic cleaning principles are TACT
T - temperature - warmer cleans better than cold
A - agitation - breaks up the soiling
C - chemicals -- detergents, enzymes, pH appropriate to the stain and/or saponification and/or fiber content, or oxidation/reduction.
T - time -- dwell time of the solution before extration

Washing machines, dishwashers, car washing, even your shower all use TACT.

There is also "encapsulation technique" that commercial carpet people use (office buildings, etc.). Spray it down, let it dry, vac it up. Unfortunately, it does not fit my business model of "make sure the stain is out before you leave." And as a consumer, you may have a hard time finding and buying it. Many places will not sell to you unless you're "in the trade."

Caveat is knowing your sub-floor material, as stated above.

Open windows (air exchanges per hour), ambient temperature and humidity, and air movement will affect dry time.

We have used a carpet cleaning surface. It cost around $75 but much cleaner then I could do it and they do a better job of vacuuming up the water.
Don

rhagfo wrote:

byronlj wrote:
The first time we cleaned ours it seemed to get dirty even quicker. We now use Scotch Guard and the carpet stays clean for much longer. I think we use 3 or 4 cans which isn't cheap.
Dave

Just use clean hot water, will do a great job cleaning, and not leave a residue on the carpet to attract dirt.

I do a combination. One pass the normal way. Second pass with nothing but a 5% hot bleach water. It is surprising how much soap I pull up in the second pass and how clean the RV smells after the bleach water pass is dry.