What You Need to Know Before Hiring a Carpet Cleaner
What type of cleaning system should you choose for the cleaning of your valuable carpets? There is so much information on the internet these days, that it’s becoming very confusing for people to make up their mind on what method will best suit them.
Regardless of all the things you may read on the net, the best thing to do is contact a reputable cleaning company, like Best 1 Cleaning & Pest Control, for free quality advice.
We offer sound advice for any type of enquiry about with steam cleaning or dry cleaning. Don’t be misled by the tricks that some companies do to get your business.
Whichever company you choose to hire to clean your carpets, they should firstly offer you a full guarantee on the service provided. This should also be given in writing if requested.
The biggest mistake many people make when hiring a carpet cleaning service is, they go with the cheapest price possible. We all know in this day and age that you get what you pay for, and in the carpet cleaning world this is very true.
Don’t be fooled by tricky advertising like, get 1 room done for free, or the pest control is a freebie. This is just a tactic used to get a foot in the door. Once they are in then the big sell comes.
What to Ask a Company Before You Hire Them
The time to know exactly what you are going to get in a carpet cleaning service is when you are on the phone. Ask as many questions as you like. Here are some you should ask before you let any old carpet cleaner in to do your carpets.
- Is the service guaranteed?
- How long is the guarantee?
- Will the stains come out, or is this an extra charge?
- What type of system will you use, i.e. steam or dry and portable or truck mounted?
- Does the job include – Deodorising and Sanitising?
- Is it extra for a pre-stain treatment?
- How long will the job take?
- How much experience do you have?
- Do you own the business yourself?
- How long have you been in business?
By asking these questions you will soon get an idea of what type of cleaning company you are about to hire. A good quality company will not have any hesitations in answering any of your questions.
If you have gone with a cheap cleaner, remember this, they should complete the job to Australian standards no matter how little they are charging you or there is absolutely no point in having the job done in the first place.
If a company comes into your home and tries to up-sell you on extra’s that should be part of the normal cleaning process, you have every right to ask them to leave. Don’t be bullied into having a poor quality job done.
What Should be Included in a Carpet Clean?
This is a list of things that a carpet cleaning company should always do no matter what they are charging. It makes no difference if you get a cheap $50 dollar job done or a $110 dollar job done. At the end of the day the service should be up-to an acceptable standard.
- Pre-vacuuming
- Pre-stain treatment (applies to all the carpeted rooms not just the marks and spots)
- A steam or dry clean ( whichever is best for the carpet type)
- Deodorising
- Sanitising
The list above is the main ingredients for a professional carpet clean. If all of these things aren’t included in the original price, then what are you paying for? This is why it is important to get it right on the phone at the beginning.
Warranties and Guarantees.
All carpet cleaning services should come with some sort of a guarantee. The term Guarantee can have a different meaning, depending on who you talk to. So what should be guaranteed in a carpet cleaning service?
Stains are the biggest problem for many companies and customers. The big thing that will determine a warranty on a stain is whether it’s a permanent stain or not. This is something that a professional technician should be able to ascertain after an inspection of the carpets.
Some very stubborn stains may just come out without any real effort, but others such as cordial, red wine, make-up etc may require a bit more of time to be spent on them. This is where the confusion starts – what is part of a carpet clean and what isn’t.
Basically, if a stain comes out with the general pre-spray then that’s fine, as this is part of a normal carpet cleaning process. But if it requires more time to be spent on it, then an extra charge may apply. This charge will depend on how long it takes for the cleaner to remove the mark, and this should be discussed beforehand.
After the carpets have dried, and if you are not happy with the results for whatever reason, you have the right to ask the company back to redo the areas that you are concerned about. This is where hiring the services of a well trained professional carpet cleaning company will benefit. This is because a quality company wants your repeat business, whereas a cheaper company is just in it for the short term.
Having a company that offers a warranty is very important for tenants moving out of a rental property at the end of a lease. This is a time when you need the expertise of a professional carpet cleaner or your bond could be at risk.
How to Look for a Reputable Company
The best place to start looking is your family. Ask them who they used and were they happy with the results. Or you can do a Google search. It is usually the best place to start to try and look for a company with some reviews. This will give a good indication of what sort of company they are.
Find out how long they have been in business for; this gives a good ideas of the sort of company you are looking at. Usually the longer a carpet cleaner has been around the better they are.
Look for sign written vans; a well-kept van generally means that the company has good standards and will do a quality job. Companies that spend money on sign writing are usually looking for repeat business, and this is the sort of carpet cleaning company you should be looking at getting to do your carpets.
What Machine Should be Used – Portable or Truck Mounted?
The debate on what type of cleaning machine to use can be debated for hours, and you will get many different opinions depending on who you speak too and what type of machines that company has.
One way to look at it is this, a carpet cleaner doesn’t spend $100,000 dollars setting their van up with an expensive truck mounted carpet cleaning machine if it does the same job as a $5,000 dollar portable machine. So you have to think for a minute and ask yourself what is the difference.
The truth is a well-trained carpet cleaner can do an exceptional job with a portable or a truck mounted machine, but the truck mount does have a few more trick up its sleeve than it smaller brother the portable.
The truck mounted machine is the only “true” steam cleaning machine. To understand this have a look here (Portable or Truck mounted machine), this will tell you all you need to know about the two types of machine.
Here at Best 1, we have all the different cleaning methods, from steam cleaning with a truck mount to hot water extraction with a portable, to dry cleaning with a rotary machine. So no job is too big or small for us.
The most important thing to understand about how to choose the right carpet cleaner is to ask some questions and the best person to answer them is a well-trained technician like Jason Neale who has been in the business for over 16 years, servicing Brisbane, Ipswich, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
We put these posts out there for the world to see. This doesn’t just help the customers that we service in our area, but it also help people from Australia and the world to choose the right carpet cleaner.
There is nothing worse than paying a cleaning company to steam or dry clean your carpets, and then be disappointed. With the aid of the internet and services like YouTube nobody should have to experience a poor carpet clean.
Best 1 Cleaning & Pest Control’s Promise to our Customers
When we come out to do your carpet cleaning, if there are any stains that don’t come out, we will happily come back again free of charge and try again to remove them – at a time that is best for you. If they still don’t come out, then this may mean that they are a permanent mark. If another company can get that same mark out then we will give you a full refund of our services.
This is a guarantee that is second to none. We are very confident in what we do, and this is why we are happy to put a full money back guarantee our services.
Don’t forget to ask the question and get the right advice from the start. This will save you time and money in the long run.
