February 04, 2012 at 10:19 PM

Using wetting agents on carpets will help the pre spray or shampoo to penetrate the carpet fibres.  Most carpet cleaners leave this important product out because of the cost, but the thing is they are letting their customers down with poor work.
The reason carpet cleaners should use a wetting agent mix into their pre spray is to release as much of the in ground dirt as possible.  a pre spray will release dirt slowly, so when the cleaning process starts some of that dirt can still be stuck to the carpet fibres, whereas if a wetting agent had been used it releases dirt up to 10 time more effectively than not using one.
 The big rule with carpet cleaning is you get what you pay for, so if you are only paying peanuts then that’s the job to expect. Most carpet cleaners will be in and out of a 3 room cleaning job within 15-20 minutes; this is not enough time to clean the carpets properly. This type of clean is known in the trade as a splash and dash, in fact some cleaners that use this sort of tactic won’t even put a pre spray over the carpet first, they just put the cleaning agent in the fresh water holding tank and clean as they go, this is wrong because the pre spray or shampoo that cleans the carpet hasn’t had enough time to dwell. It’s the dwell time that helps to release the in ground dirt from the carpet.
 So how do you know if you are getting a quality professional carpet cleaner, well ask some questions like: how long have you been in business, and do you have insurance, and what sort of machine are you going to use to clean my carpets with, a portable or a truck mounted machine.
The truck mounted machine will leave a portable for dead as far as cleaning goes, but portables can do a good job if in the right hands and this is the problem, because a portable machine is cheap to buy, that is what all the cheap carpet cleaners use, and most haven’t been cleaning for very long at all. You can always tell a professional carpet cleaning business because they will have truck mounted machines and portables, the portable would only be used if the truck mounted machine had no access to the job site.