Mold and Dry Rot in Rugs.

There is a fungus among us… …and there is nothing “fun” about it. One of the worst conditions that can befall a rug is DRY ROT. Mold, mildew, and dry rot are various types and stages of particular fungi. Where you can sometimes kill and remove the first two groups without much evidence left behind [...]

Rug Dyes. What makes them bleed.

The biggest fear most rug cleaners have regarding rugs is that the rug might bleed while in their care. The fact is, with proper training and the right tools and solutions, even the most fugitive dyes in a rug can be successfully cleaned… …you just need to know what you are doing. And interestingly enough, [...]

Rugs with material on the back.

Most professional rug cleaners should know this, but in case you don’t… … wool rugs with material on the back like this one, are called TUFTED rugs: Some have a loosely attached material like the above one from China, and some have material that is more firmly in place like this one from India: I [...]

Rug Topics for CFI Members.

I just had the privilege of speaking to a group of CFI members up in the Inland Empire. (That is the Carpet & Fabricare Institute, which is a professional trade association that covers cleaning and restoration professionals throughout California, Nevada, and Arizona.) The topic was… I know you’re shocked… RUGS! =) After several hours of [...]

Why some rugs buckle.

I receive a lot of “help me” calls from rug cleaners and rug owners on rugs that are buckling. They want to know what to do. And my answer is usually… it depends. That’s because there are a number of reasons why a rug is buckling on someone. Some of these reasons are correctable. Others [...]

House plant damage to rugs. Your options.

Watering a potted plant near a rug can lead to a big ugly dry rot hole in a rug if it’s left undisturbed for too long. If you want to know why this happens, please read this => Don’t Water The Rugs! That’s what happened to this runner. The moisture from a potted plant was [...]

Rugs and Floods. What to do.

With the number of home floods escalating due to severe weather, a number of rugs will be exposed to flood water. The longer a rug remains wet the more likely it is to have dye migration that is not correctible. Rugs that are not washed properly, and not dried thoroughly, can end up with mildew [...]

Why some rug dyes bleed.

There are a variety of reasons a rug might “bleed” on you. Let’s go through different scenarios for a wool rug like this one, where the red dyes have migrated into the neighboring off-white areas: What could create this type of dye migration? Several things. FUGITIVE DYES – if the red is shown to not [...]

Don’t water the rugs!

If you have plants anywhere near your rugs in your home – or if you are a rug cleaner and see plants near rugs you are picking up to clean – you want to watch out for this particular problem that often is not discovered until it’s too late. Even the most careful person spills [...]

Hidden danger – bleeding rug wefts.

Every professional rug cleaner knows how to test a rug to see if the dyes are colorfast or not. At least they should know how to. =) Especially since a good percentage of new rugs today have dye colorfastness “issues.” I walk through the steps in my post on dye testing, and the video on [...]

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