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Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:32 am
by lcbl75771
How do you guys clean the carpet on your boats? What cleaner, and do you use some sort of machine? Do Handheld carpet cleaners work any good?

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:35 am
by GregF
Pressure cleaner with a soft nozzle

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:42 am
by Thin Ice
I bought this last summer...

http://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Spotbot-H ... B00450U7QS

Works great

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 12:16 pm
by WILD MAN
I haven't had to clean the whole carpet yet but last year someone had some red clay on there shoe and put some really dark red spots on my new cream colored carpet :x I had some of this laying around so I tried it it works great!!

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 12:44 pm
by gramps
On our old boat I used our carpet steam cleaner, for bad spots I used Oxy Clean and it worked great.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 1:07 pm
by Bamaman
I first do a complete vacuuming of the carpet with a high strength wet/dry vac.

Then I'll get after any spots with any of the good spray carpet shampoo--like the Blue Coral pictured above. There are many other brands that are also good, but I've had great luck with Blue Coral. I will put the elbow grease into the spots scrubbing with a 2 1/2" coarse nylon brush with a handle. Any kind of coarse brush will work.

Now, if I was going to shampoo the whole boat, I'd pull out my Hoover steam carpet cleaner with brushes. I have seldom had to use it, however.

I'm going to clean my carpet with Zep orange degreaser/cleaner next week. I made the mistake of using the pontoon as a ladder platform to paint the boathouse eaves--and I dropped a quart of paint on the boat carpet.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Do yourself a favor and never allow anyone to smoke on your boat. They will invariably drop damned ashes on your carpet and burn a 1/4" round hole in the carpet.

Also, never allow your teenage kids to haul their boatless friends around on your pontoon, as there will always be smokers amongst them. I banished all my daughters' friends from our lake house after the next door house had a burglary, and the neighbors complained about socially undesirable young people hanging around. Best move I ever did.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 5:19 am
by waterlab
Call Stanely Steamer they will do the carpet for under 150.00

http://www.stanleysteemer.com/Home/Resi ... nding.aspx

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 6:22 am
by badmoonrising
I just bring my Bissel carpet machine down to the boat.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 11:31 am
by robster
You can rent one of those Bissell Big Green carpet cleaners at Lowes.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:07 pm
by GregF
What is wrong with the pressure cleaner? I probably get more crap on my carpet than most since this is the work boat for river cleanups and construction projects but the pressure cleaner with the 40 degree nozzle or a small electric with the head opened up all the way does a great job. Just don't get too close.

I am not sure I would want a steam cleaner on a wood deck at all. (I know Ed has a metal deck)

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:23 pm
by Bryden24shp
I agree, Greg! Thats how I have been doing all of my boat carpets for over 30 years! It brings back all the nap and makes them look new. I dilute down some LA Awesome and run it right through the soap attachment. Tilt the trailer down so it drains off the front of the pontoon boat. Tilt the trailer up and let it run into the bilge in the Baja's. Shop vac dry or let the sun do it for me. Takes maybe an hour.
Bryan

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:42 pm
by GregF
The PC doesn't get the carpet any wetter than hitting a big wave and having 2" of water in the cage ;)

I do it on the lift and I have my cables staggered so the boat sits at a pretty good angle draining off the starboard aft corner.
That is where I keep the trash can underway but it is clear on the lift.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 2:11 pm
by oldcoot
gramps wrote:On our old boat I used our carpet steam cleaner, for bad spots I used Oxy Clean and it worked great.
Ditto!!!!...(us old bastards think alot alike!!) :thumbsup

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:50 pm
by badmoonrising
My Bissel machine is not a steamer, it barely heats the water. And no, I would not use a steamer on a plywood decked boat.

Re: Carpet Cleaning???

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 10:35 am
by SoapPeddler
This is an interesting threat to me because I sell carpet cleaning equipment. Most if it couldn't be used on a boat because the machines are too large.

Image

Basically carpet cleaning can be broken down into four steps.

1. Remove debris usually (pick up the big chunks and vacuum).

2. Apply chemical / water solution. Usually the carpet will be cleaned more effectively if the chemical solution is applied and allowed to dwell before the water is applied to the carpet. If you are using a machine then put only clean water or a rinse agent into the machine, this has the effect of rinsing the soils and chemicals out of the water.

3. Agitate. This can be done by the bushes on a carpet cleaning machine, a manual brush or with water pressure. Agitation helps to bread the soils free from the carpet fibers.

4. Remove water and soils. Carpet extractors vacuum the water out of the carpet. If you are allowing the water to run off of the boat and waiting for the carpet to air dry, make sure and rinse the carpet thoroughly because the soils that you are trying to remove are suspended in the water that you cleaned with. If you do not remove that water, you are not removing the soils. You can also run push broom or squeegee across the carpet to push the water off of the boat.

Carpet cleaning chemicals usually fall into two categories.

Alkaline. Most carpet chemicals fall into this category. They rely on a hight pH to remove soils. This works because most of the soils we are trying to remove have a low pH. The chemicals that come with rental equipment fall into this category.

Oxidizers. Oxyclean is the most well known. They work by oxidizing the soils. I prefer this type of chemical because it removes organic material very well, deodorizes the carpet well and is less likely to leave a chemical residue that will attract new dirt.

I hope this very brief description helps. I'll be happy to help with any specific questions.