Carpet Cleaning Tips and Techniques

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Use Green Cleaners at Home

April 14th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

Keeping a clean home also means keeping a toxin-free home. One key way to do this is by using all natural multipurpose cleaning products that don’t emit Volatile Organic Compounds, have a neutral pH, don’t contain solvents, and are biodegradable. That doesn’t mean that you can’t wash with anything but vinegar and water, but you do need to watch out for ingredients that have poisonous fumes and leave harmful residues. Here are a few cleaner characteristics to look for:

Avoid Volatile Organic Compounds - Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs are fumes that can be toxic when emitted from certain solids or liquids. According to the EPA, concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors.  This is because of the lack of ventilation of the VOCs that are off-gassed from many common products used at home. Health-harming VOCs in the home come from cleaning supplies, paint and paint removers, air fresheners, dry cleaned clothing, and plywood.

VOCs cause short and long-term harm to your health, such as dizziness, headache, eye irritation, flu-like symptoms, triggering asthma, and even life-threatening conditions like cancer. Pregnant and nursing women, babies and children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems are even more susceptible to the negative effects of breathing VOCs, so it is important to take steps to reduce VOCs in your home environment for everyone’s sake.

One of the most frequent exposures to VOCs in the home comes from cleaning products. From the everyday cleaners for the kitchen countertops, to the grill degreaser and window cleaner, to what you use to mop your floors, clean your carpets and scrub your tubs – they all give off noxious VOC fumes that are breathed in high concentration when being used, but also for hours afterwards and even as they off-gas sitting in the cabinet.

Neutral pH - Current common cleaning products come with extensive instructions about where and what to use them on and even more importantly, where not to use them.  This relates to their pH level, either acidic, below 7.0, ranging to such levels as battery acid, to greater than 7.0, the alkaline side, inclusive of bleach.  A neutral pH, that of 7.0, means the product is non-reactive environmentally when combining with water, not damaging to surfaces, and not harmful to your skin.

Neutral pH eco friendly cleaning products won’t harm even the most sensitive surfaces, such as marble, and you don’t have to worry about it throwing off the pH balance of your skin.

No Solvents - If you knew something was toxic and carcinogenic to the environment and the people who used them, you probably would avoid use.  Common household products often contain solvents such as Ethylene Glycol Ethers (EGEs), alcohols, esthers, and Propylene Glycol Ethers (PGEs).  You won’t be surprised to learn these are corrosive chemical ingredients.

Biodegradable - Rinsing, flushing, and washing only remove the chemical cleaners from your surfaces, not from the impact to the environment.  Retaining their harsh, damaging nature instead of dispelling the toxicity by changing into non-damaging co-factors, common household cleaners are not environmentally friendly.  There is also a level of greater dissipation in some biodegradable products, with some producing the desired result faster than others.

Making the move to replace your existing toxic chemical cleaning products to all natural multipurpose cleaning products is easy to do. You will be delighted with the effectiveness of the all natural cleaning products.

How to Hire a Carpet Cleaning Company

April 14th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

If you own a home or business there will be a time that you will require to clean your carpets, rugs, and/or upholstery resulting in you needing to hire a cleaning company.  Before you open the Yellow Pages and choose the cleaning company with the biggest AD, you may want to consider some of these tips on how to find the perfect carpet cleaning company.

First step, is to know what type of carpet care specialist you require. Note: not all cleaning services are created equal.  Just because a business offers cleaning services (i.e. house cleaning maids, janitorial services, etc.) does not mean you should necessarily hire them. You will most likely want a company that specializes in carpet cleaning.  Even when it comes down to the micro-niche of ‘carpet cleaning’ there are specialist in each sector, from dry carpet cleaning to wet carpet cleaning, to steam cleaning to green environmentally friendly carpet cleaning, etc.

Second step is finding a good set of resources that list carpet cleaners in your area.  Now you can do this the ‘old fashion’ way by using your local Yellow Pages or your local newspaper’s classified AD’s section, however I am pretty sure most people in today’s day and age will opt to use the internet by searching through one of the search engines: Google, Yahoo, and/or Bing.  A big benefit of using the internet over the Yellowpages is that online there are tons of great websites that allow consumers to rate and review companies.  This added insight can greatly help you when choosing a local carpet cleaner.

Discovering contact info for a carpet cleaning business is easy, the hard part is deciding which one is best.  Regardless of where you search to find a cleaning company, be sure to ask for some references and to make sure they are bonded.  Whenever you are hiring a company and having them come into your home and/or business you want to make sure you dot all your ‘i’s’ and cross all your ‘t’s’ for security reasons.  You may also want ask if they are offering any specials or coupons.  Often, if you don’t ask you won’t receive.  Sometimes by just mentioning this a local business will give a deal.  Don’t be afraid to shop around and to tell the other merchant their competitors pricing, especially if there is a merchant that looks good, but pricing is a little high.

If you followed the tips outlined above you most likely made a great decision and are satisfied with the company your hired to clean your carpets.  If that is in fact true, why not help your local carpet cleaner out by letting your friends and family know of their services and maybe even go as far as writing a review online at one of the social review sites.  This type of feedback is great for both consumers and small business owners and usually only takes a couple minutes of your time.

Cleaning Services – Various Services And How to Select An Appropriate One

April 14th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

The modern cleaning industry has evolved into a business that is capable of giving you with a explanation to all your cleaning problems. As a multi-billion dollar industry, it is providing a variety of cleaning services such as commercial cleaning, house cleaning, carpet and upholstery cleaning as well as janitorial cleaning.

Here is an introduction to some of the excellent cleaning services acquirable today:

Janitorial Cleaning Services

These are best fit for commercial buildings and industrial holds where inclusive hour-by-hour cleaning is wanted. There are various implicit vacuuming services provided such as vacuuming, cleansing, bathroom cleaning, dusting and trash removal.

Carpet Cleaning and Upholstery Cleaning Services

These services are best suited for homeowners who need to work at full time jobs and can’t take care of their upholstery on a normal basis. Additionally, these services are often used by commercial businesses on a contract basis.

Water Harm Restoration

This service has been freshly started and involves restoration of walls, ceilings and all other kinds of damages created by water and dampness.

Mattress Cleaning Services

Mattress cleaning services are required by all. The modern day cleaning services use particular techniques to provide sanitisation, dust removal and removal of other likely adverse contaminants.

Window Cleaning Services

While making a seek for cleaning services, we came across a number of them devoted to providing window cleaning services to commercial establishments  and industries. Most commercial entities get into a bi-yearly or a yearly contract with such service providers who including window cleaning, also provide janitorial cleaning services to them.

Industrial Cleaning Services

Industrial cleaning requires special techniques and expertise, especially required for industrial establishments that negotiate in hazardous discard matter like fertiliser manufacturing agencies, chemical industries and nuclear power plants.

How to Appoint a Cleaning Service

The following guidelines need to be kept in mind while hiring commercial cleaning or residential cleaning services.

Who is Your Service Provider?

Cleaning businesses often get into contracts with various cleaning experts. Besides the matter that these employees are hugely skilled and insured, they often do not work for the company directly. You need to be sure of the person you’ll hold responsible in case something goes wrong at your premises. 

Is the Cleaning Company Recognised?

This can be analysed easily. You need to see if the company is listed with the ‘Cleaners Guild’ or a similar association in your neighbourhood. On the other hand, make sure that the company’s pays its taxes well and withholds applicable taxes from employee wages.

Penalties for Insufficient Work

The only penalty that seems reasonable in this scenario is that the cleaning service imitates the cleaning procedure appropriately, absolutely free of cost.

Air-Purifiers ?Clean The Atmosphere Effectively

December 15th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

The air-purifiers are can alleviate asthma and other respiratory diseases, removing the allergens causing these diseases. The cleaning of the air is done by reducing the dust floating in the air, filtering second hand smoke and purifying the air out of every chemical pollutants, car exhausts, fumes and other polluting contaminants. It is the impure air filled with unnecessary pollutants that are creating respiratory disorders even in small children and newborn babies. So the air-purifiers provide the most effective means of clearing the air and that also well within your budgetary limits.

With the consumer demand for air-purifiers rising high, the companies have stepped-up the production of air-purifiers. They have even introduced new techniques like advanced filters, charcoal absorbents, and electrostatic charges in the air-purifiers. So the extent of purifying your air depends upon your choosing the right kind of air-purifier for your home. Whether you want a mechanical air purifier like the HEPA systems, or electrostatic filtration purifiers like ionic purifiers or a combination of both, carbon-operated air-purifiers or ultra-violet light devices, you have to decide for the air-purifier that will best suit the needs of your home.

The different types of air-purifiers that are available in the market are HEPA filter air-purifiers, carbon air-purifiers, ozone air-purifiers, ionic air-purifiers and ultraviolet light air-purifiers.

Following are the benefits and disadvantages of various air-purifiers:

HEPA air purifiers

Advantages :the allergens are captured and not released into the air once they are trapped.
Disadvantages :does not eliminate chemical fumes, cigarette smokes, odors and gases.

Carbon air-purifiers

Advantages :highly effective in cleaning atmosphere of chemicals, gases, smokes and odors.
Disadvantages :not at all effective in capturing microorganisms and allergens.

Ozone air purifiers

Advantages :truly effective for removing odors, cigarette smells, and chemical fumes
Disadvantages :not effective for allergens and most of the chemicals

Ionic air-purifiers
Advantages :capable of removing extremely fine particles almost anywhere in the rooms even those that are several feet away from the air-purifiers.
Disadvantages :does not kill germs but removes them completely from the household air and not at all effective on odors.

Ultra-violet light air-purifiers

Advantages :aids in the destruction of microorganisms that cause diseases.
Disadvantages :not at all effective for removing smoke particles, odors, industrial/household chemicals and allergens.

Get any of these air-purifiers now to clean the atmosphere in your home/office and lead a healthier life.

The author studies search engine optimisation and now he owns a company which aims at green geeks hosting and traffic signals.

Removing Scratches from Glassware

December 15th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

Everyone will come across this issue and some point or another. A favoured piece of glassware has been dropped or just mishandled and has picked up some ugly marks and scratches. A great number of people actually throw the item away believe it or not, when the scratch could quite easily be removed. With the right knowledge and materials, you can get your glass looking spotless again.

1.) Don’t use harsh abrasives to try and rub the scratch out. This may work on wood, but on your favorite whisky glass, you’ll end up with a horrible opaque patch that will look even worse and be even more difficult to remove. A fine abrasive is what you need, and the experts tend to use something like cerium oxide. Any good jewelers will stock this type of abrasive.

2.) Next you need a polishing wheel. This is a kind of buffing pad that can be attached to a drill and in combination with the fine abrasive, will gently buff out the scratch. Make sure you clean the polishing wheel first as any dirt in it will just lead to more scratching. You should also use the drill on a slow speed setting to avoid damaging you glass. Crystal glass is stronger and so can withstand higher spin speeds.

3.) For more serious scratches that cut deep into the glass, you’ll need more than a polishing wheel. In most cases you can use a resin to fill in deep scratches and you can pick this up from DIY shops and specialist glassware shops. You’ll need to ensure that the resin you use has the same refractive index as the glass, otherwise it will stand out like a sore thumb, especially on crystal vases and glassware. The resin will still need to be polished up using the abrasive like with smaller scratches, but if done right you should not be able to notice a thing.

How to Clean Your Window Blinds

December 15th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

Housework is never at top of anyone’s to do list, especially the task of having to clean your window blinds.By following these very simple steps, you will be able to keep your new blinds clean with a minimum of effort and fuss.

You should start off by dusting the blinds with a feather duster to remove any light dust.  You should rotate the blinds so that you can remove dust from the front and back surfaces.

You should then use a moist towel to clean the blinds that are slightly soiled.  A more effective solution is to use anti-bacterial wipes.Hold the towel or wipe in your hand and rub it against the blind whilst you hold your thumb on the bottom of the blind with your fingers on top.

Make sure you are careful when cleaning any metal blinds.  If you press on them too hard they can bend and be damaged permanantly.  It may be a sensible idea to detach the blinds from the window altogether so that they can be laid out on a sheet.This way you will be able to spray the blinds down.Obviously you should not try this with wooden or fabric blinds as the water would ruin them.

For any wood and faux wood blinds you can purchase a special dusting spray and cloth.If you own fabric blinds then you should use a vacuum cleaner.Attach the upholstry brush to the vacuum’s hose and run it over each side of each slat.  If this is insufficient in getting rid of all the the dirt then you should clean them with warm water.  Use a mild soap in order to spot clean any stains.

You should really dust your blinds on a weekly basis.  Failing that, make sure you do it every time you clean your house.By constantly dusting, you will ensure that your window blinds will stay looking fresh for years to come.

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