Permanent Damage

There are a few problems with carpeting that cannot be corrected with any carpet cleaning. It is easier to prevent problems if you are aware of the causes of permanent damage. At first, some are easier to spot than others are. Apparent soiling, wear, fading and permanent stains cannot be corrected with cleaning.

Apparent soiling is exactly what you would expect. These are things that may make your carpets appear to be soiled when they really are not. Reflection and lack of reflection of light and shadows would all fall into this category. One of the biggest clues you may be having this problem is the line in the carpet. If it is relatively straight you could be having a problem with apparent soiling. To test this you should find the area in the room where the light is coming from. Is there something in the path between the light source and the carpet. Or try using a white sheet to cover the area where the apparent soil and "clean" carpet meet. If the problem is shadowing or lack of light reflection you will have the same line show up on the sheet. Reflected light may also cause concern. If a chandelier, crystal or such casts a reflection on the carpet it may sometimes appear as a colored spot on the carpet. You may try moving the object to see if the spot moves also. These situations may on the outside appear to be obvious but in actuality may be hard to distinguish from a true soiling problem.

Wear in a carpet may sometimes appear to be soil. Wear, no matter how much cleaning is done, cannot be reversed. Abrasion or shading is most common in the traffic areas. Abrasion is caused by the soil on the shoes of people walking on the carpet. Imagine taking sand and pouring it on a piece of glass. Then walking back and forth across it. It will scratch and dull the appearance of the glass. This is a bit exaggerated but is a good analogy of what happens to the carpet fibers. Another problem caused by wear is pile distortion. This is normally a problem in areas where traffic turns on the carpet such as a corner or where halls intersect. This is caused when turning your foot twists or reverses the face fiber. This results in a decreased light reflection and a crescent shaped pattern will appear darker than the surrounding area.

Fading may make your carpet appear soiled when it is not. Fading is color loss in your carpet. Sunlight, acid soils and fumes may all cause color loss in a carpet and will make surrounding areas appear darker. Fading may be masked by soil and hard to detect until the soil is removed. One such area is near sliding glass doors. The build up of soil will normally be higher here because it is a traffic pattern. The sliding doors also offer the opportunity for a high degree of light to shine through. With the soil in the carpet, the traffic pattern could appear even darker than the surrounding carpet until the soil is removed. Fume fading may be caused by Nitrogen from gas heaters, fluorescent lights, pesticides and even hairspray.

Spots may often be removed easily from carpets. But in some cases there may be a permanent stain. In cases of permanent stains, most are caused by chemical reactions with the carpet dyes or discoloration due to penetration of the dye sites in the carpet fibers. These may also be hard to detect in heavily soiled areas, especially if the stain is caused by color-loss types of stains. If the stain has penetrated the dye sites, if you remove the foreign dye, the carpet dye would also be removed. The result could be less attractive than the original stain.

All of the problems discussed are physical problems with the carpet. These cannot be reversed except by replacement of either the entire carpet, a bonded insert in the problem area or in some cases dyeing the problem portion of the carpet. No amount or any type of cleaning can repair these problems. So the best solution is to prevent these conditions as much as possible.