Ever wondered what makes carpets and upholstery repel fluids and spills when they're new? How come they bead up rather than get absorbed in the fabric? You can thank carpet and upholstery protectors for that.
When you buy new carpets or furniture, it comes with stain and spill protection straight from the factory. Unfortunately, this protection doesn't last forever. It wears away over time with regular use such as walking on the carpet and sitting on the sofa. Cleaning removes some of this protection as well, but cleaning is needed because soil and other contaminants build up and can cause other damages if left undisturbed.
Luckily, your carpet cleaning professionals can restore this protection easily for you by applying commercial quality stain and spill protection to your carpet or upholstered furniture.
Carpet or upholstery stain protector is best applied after a thorough cleaning, when the carpet and fabric upholstery are clean and fresh. Simple vacuuming won't be as effective in removing soil and dirt, and they will be trapped under the protective layer. In addition, when the fibers are clean the protector will stick better, providing better protection for your upholstery or carpet fiber.
In a matter of minutes, you can protect your newly cleaned carpet and furniture. Our experienced technicians spray on the protector after the cleaning is completed, to provide the perfect finish to your carpet and upholstery maintenance.
Carpet and fabric upholstery can be protected from the following types of soil and staining:
There are several types of protectors on the market. Each type of protector is meant to better protect from a different type of spill, protecting from fluid spills or protecting from staining. It's not exactly either this or that, but most protectors are better at one of them, and compromises on the other protection type.
Protectors made from fluorochemicals repel oil and water based spills really well so that liquids will bead up instead of immediately soaking in. When a spill is kept at the surface, you have time to blot it up before gravity takes over and it gets through to the fibers.
There are some protectors on the market which choose to focus more on preventing staining, including acid dye resistors. This helps make sure that the fruit juice or tomato sauce can't dye your carpet a new and interesting hue. These protectors don't bead up because the dye-resistance means that it isn't as good at repelling liquid. In most cases, this is a fair tradeoff - depending on your needs.
There are also green options for protector that don't contain fluorochemicals. In general these products have a much shorter life span on the carpet and are not as good at repelling oily soils as other protectors.
So how do you know which type of protector is best for your home? Ask your carpet or upholstery cleaning technician. Depending on your home and family, a technician may recommend a certain protector or the other, and can also check the condition of the current protector to see if you need a new layer of protector applied.
Experienced carpet cleaning professionals have taken the time to try different upholstery and carpet protectors to determine which ones work best for their customers and the types of soil they have in their home. They may have selected one favorite that they use most of the time, or may keep a different type on hand for special circumstances.
Whichever type of protector is available to you, you should know that they all work hard to make soil removal easier at the next cleaning, so it's an easy way to prolong the beauty and life of your upholstery and carpets.
