Pub, Club and Restaurant Carpet Cleaning

Looking after Pub, Club and Restaurant Carpets

We all know the importance of maintaining a clean and welcoming environment, one that will create a good impression for new and repeat customers.  Having a clean and healthy carpet along with the overall clean environment sets the tone perfectly. Have you ever walked into a bar or restaurant and stuck to the carpet? The importance of clean carpets can not be underestimated as its one of the first things your customers will notice especially if they are dirty.

Here we will explore options for routine and specialist maintenance. Starting with routine maintenance Carpet cleaners, as the name implies, are used to clean carpets and upholstery. While you can find a number of carpet cleaners and vacuum cleaners in a home appliance shop, these machines are often not powerful enough for the demanding carpet cleaning applications found in your pub, club or restaurant. Search the Internet for carpet cleaners, will turn up a hundreds of results, added to this is that if you search for “hoovers” you will mostly be directed to Hoovers (one of the best known brand of vacuum cleaner along with Dyson).

You need to find the right machine for the job in hand.

For everyday cleaning of your carpets and upholstery you need a robust vacuum cleaner, for those times when the carpet or upholstery has become stained or generally dirty you will need a carpet cleaner.
For busy food establishments purchasing a manual carpet sweeper and making its use part of your daily service will save considerable time and effort later and prolong the life of carpets (ground in food and crumbs will rapidly reduce their lifetime).
Vacuum cleaners rely on powerful motors and fans to suck dirt up into a bag or cyclone chamber and often come with a powered brush arrangement to beat the carpet as you clean. They come in three types, upright, cylinder and drum.  The best commercial carpet vacuums are usually the upright cleaners with a bag and rotating brush.
Carpet cleaners inject water (or a chemical mixture) into carpets and then use powerful vacuum extraction capabilities to extract out all water, solution, dirt, debris, and hardened deposits once stuck to carpet fibres. 

Vacuum Cleaners

Upright as the name implies means the machine is operated in the vertical position being pushed/pulled in front of the operator – these can be dust bag (where all the sucked up dirt etc is collected in a removable bag) or cyclone (such as the Dyson and do not require a dust bag). These are generally harder to use on stairs.  For Commercial use brands like Sebo and Numatic are commonly used by cleaning contractors.

Cylinder

This machine operates in the horizontal position and is pulled behind the operator – again cyclone and dust bag versions are available. Good for stairs but as the machine is often dragged behind the operator the main hose can be susceptible to damage.

Drum

This is where the motor and fans sit on top of a container – the most recognised brand is the ubiquitous “Henry” – and operates without the need for a dust bag as all the sucked up dirt is collected in the drum. Again, as it is often dragged around the main hose can become damaged.
Most machines will come with additional tools: crevice nozzle, extension pipes for high cleaning, soft brush, hard surface attachment
Some models come with reusable dust bags some come with disposable paper dust bags; the former need washing occasionally to maintain them (which can be messy and time consuming), the latter are wasteful and more prone to splitting (either in the machine or during disposal).

Carpet Cleaners

Your carpets and upholstery will literally suffer high footfall and you will need to maintain them and prolong their life so regular deep cleaning is essential.  This is likely to be at least an annual event, for more information and advice check out our carpet cleaning FAQ website.

 

Using a carpet cleaning contractor

Using a good carpet cleaning contractor that has been trained we feel is the most cost effective method to both clean and protect your carpet whilst avoiding any short or longer term damage.  This especially comes more important when your carpets are heavily soiled or stained as using the right chemicals on your carpet along with the correct method of cleaning to suit the carpet conditions.  This could mean that once the fibre identifications has taken place by the contractor different methods of cleaning may be applied to suit the situation.

Higher pressure levels are ideal for more demanding applications, allowing users to more readily inject water and solution, if desired, deep into the root of carpet fibres. Higher pressure levels can reach deeper stains. The use of high temperature levels can also increase the power of a carpet cleaning device. Hot water or steam carpet cleaners more readily dissolve hardened deposits in carpets, allowing for easy extraction. Carpet cleaners come in both heated and non-heated variants the majority you are likely to rent will be cold water machine.  There is more and more domestic carpet cleaning machines becoming available on the market and whilst these are ok for a well maintained domestic carpet they will not have the power or cleaning ability of a commercial carpet cleaning machine.

 The latest steam carpet cleaning systems allow for a drying time of as little as 2 hours. Third, these carpet cleaners do not leave enough time for mould or mildew to grow, as they dry quickly.
For the best results, many systems recommend pre-spraying carpets with a carpet cleaning solution and leaving for at least 15 minutes as this softens and dissolves stains, allowing for their ease of removal. “Green” or eco carpet cleaning solutions are best to use with carpet cleaner, as they are non-toxic and biodegradable making them safe for the environment and all users or people who come into contact with the carpeted surface.

Tips to prolong the life of your carpet and spot cleaning.

Firstly entry mats at your front/back doors will take a great deal of the external dirt and muck that some customers bring in with them you can buy them and clean them yourself or rent them and have them cleaned for you.

Secondly (time permitting) if you clean up a spill or stain as soon after it occurs you will have more success in removing the stain. Save money by keeping a supply of old beer towels in your cleaning cupboard/store they can be washed out and reused.

Lastly the bane of all pubs...discarded chewing gum! Ice placed directly on the gum, or an aerosol chewing gum remover applied as early as possible will prevent those glossy black circles appearing on your carpets/floors.