Let's compare carpet cleaning methods, nearly all of which rely on hot water.

• Hot water spray extraction (also known as steam cleaning). This involves spraying a hot water/detergent solution into the carpet under pressure, then extracting the soiled solution with a built in vacuum.
  
  Because there is no mechanical or brushing action this method relies on a very heavy use of hot water. There is no rinse action so a lot of the detergent stays in the carpet and can re-soil very quickly.
• Wet shampooing. Here a high foaming carpet detergent is dropped onto a revolving brush and generates foam. The mechanical agitation of the brush and foam dissolves the soil, which becomes suspended in the foam. This must be quickly vacuumed off before it dries. The system offers an excellent initial appearance, but can quickly re-soil due to unremoved foam.
• Cylindrical dry foam. There is, of course, no such thing as ?dry? foam; water has to be present to make the stiff suds. Heavy foam is produced and brushed into the carpet pile by motorised brushes and the soil is suspended in the foam, which is vacuumed out when dry. This process is quicker than some others to dry, but still leaves your carpet unusable for about 12 hours. Again, there is no rinse action that can leave a lot of foam behind leading to rapid re-soiling.
• Bonnet buffing, or ?skimming?. This is fairly common for quick cosmetic cleaning in contract situations, but is now appearing in the domestic scene with some fairly big names offering franchises. The carpet is sprayed with a detergent solution then skimmed over with a rotary brush that has a skimming pad or looped bonnet attached. As the bonnet skims the wetted surface, it picks up the suspended soil. For this method to be effective, the bonnet must be changed frequently, even in cases of light soiling. Very often this doesn?t happen and the end result is that the dirt from heavily soiled areas is picked up and redistributed to the nice clean areas. Once again, there is no rinse action, so a lot of detergent gets left behind to promote re-soiling.

• None of the problems associated with hot water methods. Dry Extraction is unique, simple and safe. It can never cause side effects or damage as it never over wets the carpet.
• The secret lies in the purpose formulated cleanser, a unique emulsion designed to tackle simultaneously both grease and water based soiling. The agent is held in suspension in an organic compound consisting of millions of minute, highly absorbent sponge like particles.
• This two-way emulsion is squeezed out of the sponges by a special, purpose-built dry carpet cleaning machine, which carries it deep into the pile where a a secondary action of the machine opens up the carpet pile in two directions - along the weft and along the warp.
• The resultant action now begins to dissolve all the ingrained soiling and most of the seemingly permanent stains too, all to be re-absorbed by the organic sponges. Finally, the sponges are removed by vacuum, leaving your carpet completely dry and ready to walk on.

Who can you trust?

Recent surveys have shown that despite the purchase of carpet being the third largest household expense, its cleaning is all too often entrusted to an unknown company whose only qualification is that they are "in your area for the next two weeks and they are offering 50% off their regular price". Surely good carpet deserved more consideration.