With the invention of the internet, all of a sudden everyone is an armchair expert. In the carpet stain removal industry, this can be disastrous and often causes irreversible damage to the carpet fibers. Here are a few we here from our customers all the time, and the reasons why you should think twice before adopting these techniques:

  1. Put salt on any spill and allow it to soak it up. Watching salt change colour as it soaks up a tea, coffee or red wine spill could easily make you think that this idea is a good one or that it is working, but it really isn’t. No matter how much salt you use there will always be a residue and sections that it doesn’t soak up which you will have to fix anyway. So now instead of just the spill, you also have salt to clean up to; and if you don’t get all of the salt up and if it ever gets wet in the future (carpet cleaning) then it can disperse the stain it had been holding inside. Save yourself the salt and all the extra work of cleaning up the salt and treat all fresh stains immediately with water and blot with a clean dry towel. This will dilute the problem and provide more carrying agent to be absorbed giving you better transference onto the towel. If the stain persists call our customer service desk for further advise.
  1. Off the shelf carpet cleaners and stain removers must be OK or they wouldn’t make those claims on TV. The off the shelf carpet cleaner & stain remover is often not acceptable for wool and New Generation carpets. They have a high alkalinity to make them affective on grease and oil but this high pH can chemically burn wool carpets and strip the protection from New Generation carpets. You will usually find they have some small print which covers them for the damage they do. It will say something like “apply to a small area and check for colour fastness” Even if you can’t find this on the label it is a good idea to do this with any product you haven’t used before. These products use alkalinity so can be affective on general dirt, oil and grease stains but will be ineffective on most coloured stains once they have dried.
  1. The best thing to put on red wine is white wine and vice versa. This is not correct although pouring white wine onto red does work, the white wine is just doing what water will do so save the white wine and stick to the instructions above. Pouring red onto white is not only wasting wine but also doubling your work and risking leaving a tannin stain which will be a lot harder to remove than the fresh wine stain.
  1. Bicarb Soda is a good stain remover. This is like the salt in that it will soak some of the spill and leave a residue. The problem with putting it on your carpet apart from it making a mess and leaving a residue is it can actually chemically burn carpet. Some woollen carpets do not like anything with a high pH and it can be chemically burnt on contact. Its alkalinity and the fact it remains damp from soaking up some of the spill can also promote cellulose browning (a different chemical reaction) which will require specialised knowledge to reverse. Unless you have this expertise the best thing is to stick to the water and towel method as described above.
  1. You must use salt or vinegar to balance the chemical reaction. Whilst there may be some times when balancing or changing the chemistry of a stain is going to help you remove it, in most cases it will be irrelevant when dealing with a fresh spill. I advise to follow the water and the dry towel instructions and seek stain specific advice if a residue remains. Water is a great first step as it will dilute the stain’s colour and the acidity/alkalinity. Because water is neutral it will bring the pH up toward neutral in an acid spill and down toward neutral in an alkaline spill. Neural or slightly acid is where you carpet likes to be.
  1. It must be OK I read it on the internet. Dr Google strikes again! Regrettably you can’t believe everything you read on the internet and we advise you stick to a trusted source where possible. If you don’t have a trusted source, do your research on multiple sites looking for consistencies and contradictions as both will help you work out what is legitimate. Be wary of sites selling a product especially if they claim one product fixes all stains on all types of carpet. No such product exists and they are blatantly lying to you and can’t be trusted. Their label is most likely full of small print diluting these spectacular claims and taking away any ownership if damage arises. Even if a supermarket product worked on your last spill it is no guarantee it will work on the next! Again, there is no one product that fixes all despite the many claims to the contrary. Our specially trained technicians carry and array of different products some of which are for specific types of stains and some that we would never use on certain carpets because of the pH levels.

Our advice on all of these myths is to think twice before blindly jumping in. If you are in doubt, call our friendly customer service team for guidance or to schedule an appointment for a professional to tackle the spill before it becomes a permanent stain. Remember to replace your carpet can set you back thousands of dollars.

Red wine stain on carpet

Pet stains on carpet