What really is zero residue carpet cleaner? There is a lot of hype going around, a lot of paid advertisement concerning it. Any wise person knows that paid advertisements are designed to sell you by twisting the truth.
Almost every carpet cleaner that comes into your home cleans this way: apply a pre-conditioning agent, steam clean the carpet with an agent injected into the water or run off a tank of water with a chemical agent in it. The result is a residue end of story, period regardless of advertisement spins.
I’ve been a carpet cleaner since 1994 and back then quality carpet cleaning was designed to leave no residues behind. This was accomplished by testing your cleaning solutions to determine if they dried sticky on a petri dish or hard and peeled off the petri dish. This determined good residue over bad residue. I decided to take it even further by doing something completely different.
The carpet cleaning industry is political as with any. So called “cerification” classes taught us all about chemistry and promoted certain corporation chemicals. Coming directly out of the military after 20 years I could see through the sell, I couldn’t wrap my head around the process of “leaving” the residue behind. Having worked quite a few jobs doing it the industry way I had issue with breathing in the atomized cleaning agent pre-conditioner that was sprayed onto the carpet but then having to breathe in the steam of the chemicalized water. I was starting to cough after all of this.
Once I realized that carpet cleaning was a health hazard I decided to make severe changes. The number one change had to be the chemicals I used. This started by getting the ingredients of every product I used and doing deep research on them. Then I had to crack the nut of finding a true zero residue cleaner.
In 1994 we didn’t have a Green cleaner, organic was just coming out but it didn’t concern chemistry yet. The big buzz word for chemistry was Biodegradable which meant nothing because chemicals bad for humans were still labeled as such.
Finally a few years later I delved into Dry Cleaning & Low Moisture carpet cleaning to avoid the chemical steam breathing. A dry cleaning plant based cleaner came out, it was great. The only problem is that Dry Carpet Cleaning was not only harsh on carpet fibers by distorting them (damaging carpet) but I was leaving my chemistry (that I termed & advertised organic at the time) in the carpet. This was not a zero residue cleaner in definition of leaving not of it behind. I used water soaked cotton towels to clean with, agitate and absorb the dirt & cleaner, I wasn’t soaking them in a chemical or another soap cleaner. Then one day, I realized I was just rearranging the dirt leaving nothing but residue and soil behind. Customers loved it because I took all the dirt spots and spread them around giving the carpet a uniformed appearance, however, a dirty uniformed appearance.
I went back to my Steam Cleaning process of using that sanitizing heat and that extreme powerful extraction. Then the carpet chemical industry started to come out with some safer products as “Organic” gained traction. The chemistry still had some bad things but the health risk was lower but I had to really search and research the ingredients. Then all these natural chemicals came out to attract carpet cleaners like Phosphate & D’limonene based products. The only problem was that I knew of Phosphate issues after having to run patrols past a phosphate factory overseas constantly where we’d travel through a cloud of it, not only that but it traveled into the ocean and damaged marine life. D’limonene aka orange oil which is extremely flammable & kills organic life gave me severe headaches which is how I discovered its hazards. It was touted as natural carpet cleaning and the termite industry were killing termites with it.
The zero residue cleaner challenge was finally completed one day once I found a very unique, safe natural, green and non toxic cleaner. It was such a great cleaner that it did not need an acid rinse injected into the cleaning water, it didn’t need the support of an additional soap chemical in the water to clean with either. My new process was to apply my Green Carpet Cleaner directly to the carpet. Then I would steam clean with just pure water without a chemical, soap or acid. Guess what? I wasn’t leaving a residue. If my green cleaner that was applied was a soap, it would not explode into tiny microscopic suds that could never get completely extracted.
My true green carpet cleaning process left no residues behind except for the residue of H2o. This was perfect for my health it was even better for my clients that were sensitive or concerned about their health due to chemical residue. No phosphates, no solvents, no petrochemicals, no carcenogens and no fragrances. Pets and children can once again play on the carpet without fears.
Almost all carpet cleaners do not clean the way I do to avoid leaving a residue behind even though they claim they don’t. Like I said, I am leaving a residue of water behind. Here is the bust: I use water with no chemical injection where all others do simply because the industry pushes it. Their process is like rinsing your laundry rinse cycle with an additional soap, chemical or acid. It’s like loading your RV fresh water tank up with a cleaning chemical then taking a shower in it. You, your hair will be left with that residue. Our process is to apply a green, zero residue cleaner directly to your carpet and flush, rinse and clean with pure water only.
Many will try to skirt this truth by stating that they have special water that has been powerized that cleans better, is safer and leaves no residue. What do you really think? Here is an example of a chemical injection jug, others may use a big tank in the van:
Mine usually stays empty since I rarely use it except for pet urine contamination where I will use it to inject vinegar into my water to remove urine salts. Some go as far to transform water into a chemical such as sodium hydroxide/lye and inject that into their water. It would be like injecting drain or oven cleaner into carpet cleaning water & leaving that behind to dry.
Give us a call for your safe non toxic carpet cleaning today and experience a zero residue cleaner. See our Specials HERE
