Carpet Cleaners

Reporter: Rohan Wenn

If you own carpet, you probably own the odd carpet stain as well, especially if you're like Gillian Neck, and you have a couple of active kids.

In the past Gillian has tried a variety of commercially available carpet cleaners, but many of the major brands have left her a little disappointed. When you look at the claims manufacturers make, it's hard to know which products work. So we enlisted the help of Dr Reg Hamilton from the Australian Wool Testing Authority.

We asked Dr Hamilton to test the effectiveness of 8 carpet cleaners on a variety of stains. The brands were Scotch Guard Spot Cleaner, Freedom Carpet Foam, Preen for Carpets Powershot, Preen for Carpet Wipes, and Preen OxyAction, Carpet Power, Orange Power, and Cavalier Bremworth Stain Remover.

“We've got milk coffee, common stain, hard to get out; tomato sauce, another very common stain, and also very hard to remove from carpet; and red wine -- I think everyone has spilt red wine on their carpet once or twice”, said Dr. Hamilton.

“Most carpet sold in Australia has stain release properties. The one we are testing has no stain release product and that means the results we see are the worst possible results -- most carpets will perform better than our test carpet will do”, Dr. Hamilton said.

The tests were carried out repeatedly, with Dr Hamilton sticking closely to the instructions on each of the packets, cans and bottles. Once the tests were done, there was a clear winner.

“The preen Oxi-action was clearly the best”, Dr. Hamilton said.

The next three cleaners weren't far behind. “The Preen Wipes, the Orange Power and the Scotch Guard, were very similar, almost as good”, Dr. Hamilton said.

And then there was the rest. “The other four...not quite so good”.

According to Carpet Call's Steve Harry the first step to avoiding carpet stains is to choose the right colour carpet for your circumstances. If you've got kids or pets, lighter colours are a no-no.

Then the best advice is to act quickly, start by blotting the stain, not rubbing, and after you've tested the cleaner in a discreet area of the carpet, it's time to apply the cleaner to the stain -- but make sure you don't put it straight onto the carpet.

“The key is to apply them with a white cloth or a nappy, and wipe the area but certainly don't rub the pile or spray the cleaner directly onto the carpet. One of the problems there is the more you spray into the carpet the less likely you are to get all the product out”, Steve said.

Finally, Steve says you should avoid using water on your carpet. “Sometimes you might be left with a brownish ring in the area, the best product for household type items is vinegar and you can use an abundance of vinegar and it won't have a detrimental effect on the carpet”, he said.

But how do the commercially available carpet cleaners stack up against the home made cleaners?

To test the home-made concoctions, Kerry will be using the book Dirty Deeds, Sue will be using the book Spotless and Sandra will be using Preen Oxy Action on red wine, coffee and tomato sauce stains.

For Red Wine the book Dirty Deeds says you should blot the stain and wash with warm water before using a conventional carpet cleaner. For coffee the book recommends you dab the stain with mineral turpentine and then sponge with cold water, and blot dry. For tomato sauce, Dirty Deeds recommends you use cold water and then dab the stain with Glycerine which you leave on for 30 minutes. Then sponge with water.

For red wine Spotless suggests you cover the stain with bicarb soda and let it dry. Vacuum that up and add bicarb and vinegar, and gently scrub. Vacuum again and sponge with vinegar. For coffee the book recommends you mop up the excess, and wipe the stain with a vinegar soaked cloth. Finally for tomato sauce, Spotless recommends you simply wash the stain with soapy water, and dry with a cloth.

So what worked best? Well the results were mixed and a bit subjective, but overall Kerry using the advice from Dirty Deeds seemed to have the best results.

Spotless and the Preen Oxy Action did similar jobs.