Residentail Glue Down Carpet Cleaning

Q: A question came up today during a visit to a friend about his carpet which was glued down due to the uneven concrete floors in his basement. He asked me how do we clean this carpet without damaging it or the glue hold the carpet down?

A: If you know you should try to find out what your manufacturer recommends as to a cleaning process. Some may recommend a dry cleaning process. In this case, you will need to get a professional cleaning service. Should they recommend a wet cleaning (shampoo, steam, etc.) you need to make sure the carpet is to clean it as dry as possible. If you don't have the manufacturer's recommendations available, I would suggest a wet cleaning method because the majority of the daily soil contaminants are water soluble.

If you go the wet route, please be mindful to use as little water as possible. Carpet which is directly glued to a concrete subfloor does not breathe like wood subflooring.  And, if you are on or below grade, the concrete can also emit its own moisture (water vapor emission). So when you wet clean a carpet you are adding moisture to that environment. Excess moisture can cause mold, delaminate the carpet, cause spots/stains to reappear, and can cause the glue to fail (many adhesive can be cleaned from tools and flooring with warm or soapy water).

There are two methods to wet cleaning carpet:
   (1) rotary shampoo and
   (2) steam extraction method
The steam extraction method is more comonly used these days.  The application shoots a high powered stream or jet of warm/hot water into the carpet. As one walks backwards dragging the equipment, it sucks the excess water up. This method is either done with portable equipment that you bring into your home (this is the type that is available at most grocery or drug stores) or truck mount equipment where just the hoses are brought into the home. The portable equipment suction is many times weaker and generally leaves the carpet too wet. The truck mount is what is recommend for most carpet. We don't recommend you doing this yourself,  because the stream of water is under pressure and is not as easily to control as you would think and may spread more mositure than you really need, even though the suction is greater.