Wool Axminster, wool broadloom and silk area rugs across South Florida hotels, ballrooms and high-end homes — cleaned inside the pH range wool tolerates, and left neutral.
Wool hides soil. That is its great virtue as a contract fibre and the reason a wool Axminster in a ballroom is almost always dirtier than it looks — by the time it reads as soiled from standing height, there is a great deal in it.
It is also the fibre least willing to forgive a mistake. Wool is a protein, and protein does not tolerate high alkalinity: a standard commercial prespray runs around pH 10 to 11, and on wool that means yellowing, dye bleed, felting and texture loss that no subsequent cleaning reverses. The damage is not visible while the technician is still in the room.
So we work inside the range wool tolerates. Alkaline prespray no higher than pH 8.5. An acidic neutralising rinse at pH 3.0 to 5.0 — which rinses residue better than water alone and brings the fibre back to neutral, where wool should be left. Agitation only with wool-compatible brushes.
The pile is set while it is still damp and warm, because wand marks and jet streaks put into wool after it cools stay there. Then it is dried fast — air movers, the building’s own air handling — since a wool carpet left slow-drying is a wool carpet developing an odour.
Wool is cleaned to a different chemistry than synthetic carpet, and getting it wrong is not a cosmetic mistake — it is permanent.
The pre-spray is a wool-safe alkaline at a pH no higher than 8.5. Above that, wool fiber is damaged rather than cleaned. The final rinse uses a concentrated acidic neutralising agent, which flushes out detergent residue conventional water leaves behind and brings the carpet back to neutral. Wool should be neutral by the time we leave the building.
Residue is the reason so much wool re-soils within days of being cleaned. Detergent left in the pile is sticky, and it collects the next fortnight of dry soil faster than the carpet collected the last month of it.
Eighty per cent of the soil in a carpet is dry soil, and the single most useful thing anyone does to a wool floor is vacuum it properly before anyone brings a machine near it.
Adding cleaning solution to a carpet full of dry soil makes mud. That is not a figure of speech — it is what happens, and it is why a pre-vacuum is a step in our written procedure rather than a courtesy.
Industry studies put 94 per cent of the soil in a building as having arrived on somebody’s feet. Matting at every entrance is the cheapest floor care a building will ever buy. After that: a commercial vacuum with a beater brush daily, a pile lifter weekly on traffic lanes, and twice-daily vacuuming at track-off areas and kitchen entrances.
The prespray limit wool tolerates. Above it, yellowing and dye bleed — and the damage shows up after the truck has left.
Rinses residue better than water and returns the fibre to neutral, which is where wool should be left.
Wand marks and jet streaks set permanently once wool cools. Grooming happens in small sections, while it is still warm.
Brintons US Axminster, Masland Contract and Milliken supply the wool in South Florida hospitality. We inspect claims for them.
Wool has terrific soil-hiding capability and will almost always be more soiled than it appears — a property of the fibre, not a failure of the housekeeping. Eighty per cent of the soil in any carpet is dry soil, and on wool it is hidden, which is why wool floors are routinely under-vacuumed.
Coffee, soda, red food dye, wine, food and protein stains, rust, gum, tar and grease do not come out in the cleaning process and each needs its own method — before the general clean, not after.
A wool-safe alkaline pre-spray with a pH no higher than 8.5, misted in a consistent overlapping pattern with more solution in the heavily soiled areas, and never allowed to dry before extraction. Heavy traffic can be agitated with wool-compatible brushes or a cylindrical brush machine.
A wool-safe acidic neutralising rinse in a portable or truck-mount extractor. This is the step that decides the job — see below.
Wool takes a set. Grooming prevents permanent jet streaks and wand marks, and it has to happen while the pile is still damp — clean a small section, set it, move on.
Air conditioning, ceiling fans, and preferably air movers. Speed here is what prevents browning, wicking and — on woven wool — shrinkage.
On wool the rinse does considerably more than rinse, and it is the product worth asking a contractor about.
A concentrated acidic neutralising agent used in the final rinse removes soil and residue better than conventional acid rinses or water alone. Alongside that it:
Since wool is damaged by alkaline exposure above 9.5 pH over time, leaving alkaline residue in a wool carpet is not an appearance problem. It is continuing exposure to the thing that damages the fibre.
Four things damage wool, and all four are irreversible. Every one of them is done by a contractor rather than by traffic.
Which is why the most useful sentence a building can offer before anyone arrives is which spaces are wool. Told that, a contractor tests and treats conservatively. Told nothing, they assume nylon — because most commercial carpet is — and on the day that assumption is wrong, the most expensive floor in the building pays for it.
Some of Our Clients
Fibre identification, the pH window, and the four things that damage wool permanently.
Wool ends up in the parts of a building that matter most — boardrooms, ballrooms, executive floors. It is also the fibre most often damaged by a routine commercial clean.
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Most complaints about a carpet clean are not about the cleaning. They are about what happened over the next forty-eight hours — and all three of the usual failures have the same two causes.
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You do not need to identify a fibre by burn test. You do need to know whether the floor is nylon or wool, because the two have different tolerances and one of them is unforgiving.
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The choice between extraction and low moisture is not about which is better. It is about how long the space can be out of service — and what the fibre will tolerate.
Read more →Serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. We reply to commercial inquiries the same business day, and respond to flood and water emergencies.
