How To Deep Clean a Very Large Area Rug?

When deep cleaning an area rug that is very large in size (>10 square meter), you need to be careful with over wetting and drying issues. This is because, compared to small area rugs, the water is more easily trapped in large area rugs and it can stay there for days. As a result, the rug can produce unpleasant musty odor.

To solve these issues, you need professional cleaning equipment, carpet detergent, as well as some calculations of the water usage (so not to over wet the rug). To illustrate these points, lets look at a special case from one of our users.

Case Study: A 24-square-meter area rug kept in the basement

An user engaged us for her area rug that measures 4m x 6m = 24 square meter in size. This is extraordinarily large as compared to other rugs that we commonly handle. What’s worse, the area rug could not be taken to outside (due to its inconveniently large size) and was kept in a basement room which means absolutely no exposure to sunlight for drying.

After some studies, we prescribed the following:

Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner x 1 unit
Karcher AB 45 Classic x 2 units
Karcher RM 519 x 1.2 liters (Carpet detergent)
Fresh water x 48 liters

The user accepted our prescription. The area rug was thoroughly deep cleaned and restored to hygiene condition (lots of dirt removed, and no more oily feel). Furthermore, it was successfully dried up in less than 24 hours! In the following, let’s go through some of the essential details.

Picture: An user’s area rug to be deep cleaned with our rental equipment. Its dimensions are 4m x 6m = 24 square meter which is extraordinarily large compared to others.

The Carpet Cleaner

The Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner was chosen for the task. Its scrubbing mechanism and powerful vacuum ensures lots of dirt to be removed. The following video shows the machine deep cleaning the rug mentioned in the case study. Note that when cleaning, the machine was pulled backward at a steady speed of about 1 foot step per second. This is the recommended moving speed by the machine manufacturer for effective cleaning. Do you see the high flow of dirt water in the video?

Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner (Rental)

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Video: The Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner in action.

The Carpet Detergent & Cleaning Solution

Carpet detergent “Karcher RM 519” partners very well with the Rug Doctor. It cleans well and able to prevent bad odor. Every time, the solution tank of the Rug Doctor is filled up with 4 liters of fresh water and 0.1 liter of the carpet detergent. This makes up (approx.) 4 liters of cleaning solution. To clean the rug mentioned in the case study, 48 liters of cleaning solution and hence 1.2 liters of carper detergent were used. Now lets do some calculations to understand the rationale behind these numbers:

Picture: Carpet detergent Karcher RM 519 x 1 liter in bottle.

For the rug mentioned in the case study, 2 liters of cleaning solution was required for every square meter of the rug area. Since the rug is 24 square meter in size, the total cleaning solution required was 48 liters. This also means 48/4 x 0.1 liter = 1.2 liter of carpet detergent was required.
Assuming 80% of cleaning solution was recovered back into the machine, the left over in the rug will be 20% which is 2 liters x 0.2 = 0.4 liters in every square meter of the rug. This gives us a sense of how wet the rug is right after the machine cleaning: It is like a big mug of water spilled over a 1m x 1m rug area, which is not so bad and we can dry it up with the right tool.

The Carpet Dryer

To effectively speed up the drying process, two units of Karcher AB 45 Classic were used (professional carpet dryers). They produces very strong air flow to blow away moisture from the rug. The following video shows these dryers blowing at the rug mentioned in the case study. Note that the rug was purposed “lifted” by the blow so that its both sides get exposed to high air flow for effective drying. This is important to remove moisture that find its way to the bottom of the rug. Do you feel the strong wind in the video?

Karcher AB 45 Classic (Rental)

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Video: Two units of Karcher AB 45 Classic in action.

Concluding Remarks

We presented a case study where an area rug as large as 24 square meter was successfully deep cleaned and dried up in less than 24 hours. This remarkable result is based on the use of professional equipment, carpet detergent, and some careful calculations of the water usage.