A Discussion About Carpet Maintenance With Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home

"90% of consumers are never told how to maintain their carpet."

So says Bill Kerns, President of Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And it's a missed opportunity to build a relationship with customers, as well as reduce claims and complaints.

According to Kerns, 40% of manufacturer claims are maintenance related. Help a consumer understand how to protect her investment and you will have a customer for life.

Powerful words and actions.

Annette Smith and I recently spoke with Bill Kerns and Tony Marotta, his carpet maintenance expert. We wanted to understand how Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home - a family run retailer in business over 70 years - goes about educating the consumer, particularly in view of new cleaning requirements that went into effect Jan. 1, 2007 and further ones that went live on Jan. 1, 2008. Not following these requirement can nullify carpet warranties.

More specifically according to Janet Herlihy's 5/5/2008 FCW writeup titled "Cleaning requirements raise awareness," the major carpet mills - Shaw, Mohawk, Beaulieu, Blue Ridge and Tai Ping Options - "announced that to maintain warranties on certain residential carpet, they would have to be cleaned according to a schedule using cleaning products and equipment with the Carpet & Rug Institute's [CRI] Seal of Approval [SOA]."

Most of the cleaning schedules range from 12 to 24 months, with some in the 12 to 18 months range. Please be sure to check your warranty requirements! [Note: the Wear-Dated warranty requires professional cleaning every 24 months.]

Effective Jan. 1, 2008 - according to FCN's Sarah Zimmerman in "Carpet maintenance and cleaning allocated by mills" from 5/19-20/2008 - a new requirement has gone into effect: to only allow professional carpet cleaning from IICRC [the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification] accredited and certified carpet cleaners.

The genesis of all of these new requirements and regulations: diminishing consumer satisfaction with carpet because of the level of incompetence demonstrated by so many installers and carpet cleaners. "In fact, CRI found in a study done on chemical cleaning agents nearly 80% of the products on the market were as effective as water, and many heightened resoiling" which led to the SOA program, and the Green Label vacuum program. The IICRC addition helps guarantee consistent high-quality workmanship.

Says Kerns: "It means that consumers won't be at the mercy of fly-by-night operations. They can count on approved cleaning solutions, methods, and technicians." However, consumer education is paramount, as without knowing about these stipulations, consumers might easily void the terms of their warranties. "What a way to burn bridges with consumers!" he adds.

Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home has trained its salespeople, giving them talking points to bring up with consumers, and demonstrating to them how best to maintain carpet. Tony gets personally involved in these demonstrations. After all, the Kerns organization takes carpet maintenance seriously!

They refer to teeth and hair to help illustrate the importance of carpet maintenance: Why brush teeth? To maintain the longevity and health of teeth and mouth. It's the same with carpet. Maintaining it extends the life expectancy of carpet. Proper maintenance means fully removing soap after cleaning otherwise it attracts more dirt. It's best to rinse with non-soap. Just like washing hair. And, it's important to reapply factory protectors for stain and soil resistance.

Now, let's put things into perspective. Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home takes cleaning so seriously that it has established an IICRC certified cleaning service: Kerns Carpet Cleaning, which also offers upholstery and area rug cleaning services.

Kerns explains that it's important to talk about maintaining floor coverings. It's an expensive investment and needs to be cared for. So, the organization takes a lead on this front by offering carpet cleaning services. On selected items, Kerns Carpet One Floor & Home offers a $100 carpet cleaning gift card to new customers. This entitles the customer to 150 square feet of free cleaning or a spot cleaning during the first year of ownership of their new carpeting. It's a marvelous reason to followup on if there's been no redemption within that first year and helps to reinforce that they are there to help. They also offer a free spot cleaning bottle at the time of the order.

How best to maintain a carpet:
+ Vacuum frequently.
+ Immediately clean stains and spots by spot cleaning.
+ Professionally clean carpet using an IICRC certified cleaner and CRI approved cleaning products every 12 to 24 months depending on the carpet manufacturer's warranty requirements [can range from 12 to 18 months].

Cleaning frequency varies with households. A house with animals and kids will experience more soiling and may require cleaning twice a year, whereas one without may find that yearly cleaning with traffic lanes done more often works well.

Kerns and Tony explained the IICRC cleaning methodology:
- pre-vacuum to remove 80% of the soil
- with CRI solutions, agitate, rinse, groom, then with an air-mover dry the carpet

Tony says that he routinely cleans a room in salespeople's homes so they understand and feel comfortable recommending the service. It's effective and generates customers for life. Per Kerns, "we see a customer every 7 to 12 years for carpet replacement, but every year because of the relationship we've built through the cleaning service."

NOTE: Prior to a claims-related inspection, a customer must have their carpet cleaned within 30 days before opening a claim if the concern is stain/soil. Please refer to the warranty terms for details. Customers have an obligation to maintain their carpet.

"Carpet is safer than hard surface. It's a lot easier to maintain than hard surface. It's a beautiful product that offers so many benefits - including stylishness - to a consumer. Why not make sure that consumers understand how to care for carpet? That way we ensure they are totally satisfied, we prevent them from voiding warranties and give them a reason to come back for more carpet," states Kerns.

"Carpet is also expensive and by providing the proper maintenance information and offering a cleaning service we can help the customer preserve the investment they are making in their home. This added touch helps us forge a long term relationship with the customer and provides us with more opportunities in the future," adds Kerns.

Thank you, Bill and Tony, for explaining how best to maintain a beautiful carpet. It's a complicated subject and the better a consumer understands her obligations under the warranty terms, the happier and more satisfied she will be. And the better her carpet will look over time.

Click on this link to locate IICRC certified cleaners. Click on this link for CRI - SOA approved products. Click on this link for details on the Wear-Dated warranty.

Note: if you have shag carpet, please do NOT use a beater bar. Instead, use a suction-only vacuum cleaner. See Shaw/Tuftex Care & Maintenance of Shag Carpet.


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Sweeping Beauty: Your Carpet's Best Friend Is Your Vacuum

Image from AdClassix.com.
"The beauty and life of your carpet depends on the care it receives. Quality carpet that is well-maintained should last 10-15 years. Proper cleaning will keep it looking great for its full lifetime, help improve your indoor air quality and help you adhere to your carpet warranties."

So says the Carpet and Rug Institute about maintaining your carpet. And it sounds like the CRI means business. Simply by keeping your carpet clean, you can protect your investment and the environment at the same time: a well-maintained carpet means that it lasts longer and stays out of landfills.

A major component of maintaining your carpet includes vacuuming, which we've discussed briefly here at Carpetology. In "Keeping Carpet Clean," Christine reminds us that vacuuming is your carpet's best friend. And in "Dog Day Afternoon," I reiterate that vacuuming is the easiest and most effective way to keep carpets clean, especially for pet owners. Now, I realize that very few people actually enjoy vacuuming (my friend Carrie is an exception to the rule; she vacuums daily. Sometimes twice daily. She loves to vacuum). But if you think really hard about the long-term benefits, vacuuming more frequently doesn't seem so bad.

You can read tips and tricks on how to vacuum from CRI and eHow and follow along with a video at About.com. But even if you vacuum daily, like Carrie, none of this matters unless you use a quality vacuum appropriate for the type of flooring you have. Let's face it - there are many vacuums out there so it's difficult to know which is best for you and your home.

Let's start with the basics: canisters v. uprights.

Canister vacuums generally work best on hardwood floors. These Vacuums Suck calls them versatile, with numerous attachments (wands, tools, a hose) for cleaning crevices, curtains, stairs and below furniture. Canisters can be easily maneuvered around the home, often much more so than uprights. Since Carpetology is all about carpet, I should mention here that although canisters haven't been known for their effectiveness on carpets in the past, Consumer Reports says that the best canisters can clean carpet just as well as upright vacuums.

Miele vacuum ad, compliments of Outkasty.com.

Regardless, uprights still rule the market, especially when it comes to carpet. Generally they're cheaper, more compact, easy to store, and equipped with a variety of features, says About.com, including dirt sensors, wide cleaning paths, unique tools, self-propelled motors, on/off brush rolls, height adjustments and several filter types. For adjustments between carpet pile heights or between carpet and hardwood, the height adjustment feature is especially handy. Plus, you have a choice in an upright vacuum's filter: bag or bagless? Now things really get exciting...

"The current trend in upright vacuums is 'bagless,'" writes How Stuff Works. "This means the vacuum forgoes the traditional disposable bag in favor of a reusable, often filtered canister to collect debris. Bagless vacuums use centrifugal force to separate particles from air flowing through this cylindrical collection vessel."

It sounds fancy, doesn't it? How Stuff Works warns, though, that unless a vacuum is built correctly, bagless vacuums can sometimes clog, causing the vacuum to lose suction.

Vacuums with bags, on the other hand, lose suction as the bag fills with dirt and debris. But their bags allow easy disposal of all those particles that you've extracted from your carpet while cleaning. Ultimately, the bag versus bagless debate depends on your own personal preference. It seems that some of the newer bagless vacuums are more effective overall, but they're also available in a higher price range.

Learn all about the physics of vacuums here on howstuffworks.com and vacuum-cleaners. Interesting and helpful!

A word of caution: As a carpet owner, you should understand that brush rolls and beater bars, those busy little spinners on the bottom of upright vacuums, need to be used with care. If they're used on carpets with twisted piles or casual textures (friezes or shags, for example), they might tangle or damage the carpet. As beneficial as beater bars can be, use them wisely. You may also want to refrain from using them on expensive rugs.

Happy vacuuming!





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Keeping Carpet Clean

Carpet Cleaning originally uploaded by amorphity.

"Your carpet can hold its weight in dirt."

That's how The clean carpet quandary, a 01/05/2008 article from the South Bend Tribune by Jennifer Ochstein starts out. The article continues "so when it begins to look dirty to you, it's likely saturated." Yikes!

What to do?

I asked our resident expert, Annette Smith, for some perspective on both carpet cleaning and the article. Here goes.

First - don't ever underestimate the power of vacuuming your carpet, and doing so frequently. Frequent vacuuming keeps soil from becoming embedded in the carpet. If you love to vacuum, you should do so to your heart's content! Do it daily. Do it hourly. It's absolutely the best thing you can do to keep your carpet clean.

Something to consider, though, while vacuuming is to make sure that the vacuum is adjusted correctly for pile height. In fact, for some carpet constructions [e.g., very plush shag], carpet manufacturers will warn against using beater bars, preferring suction instead.

Regardless, vacuuming is your friend and your carpet's best friend. Don't skip it! When soil becomes embedded in carpet, it's harder to remove it. To make matters worse, embedded soil particles are abrasive [think what would happen if you took sandpaper, even an ultra-fine grade and wiped your glasses with it]. They pit and scratch the fiber creating a dull, faded appearance. This will contribute to making the carpet look worn.

Although the article touches on vacuuming [especially before steam cleaning your carpet], it primarily addresses [steam] cleaning carpet and whether to do so professionally or on your own.

Why not to do it yourself
Most rental or non-professional equipment lacks suction power.

Then there are operator issues... "You can do a lot of damage if you don't know what you're doing."

Why go professional
Better equipment and better cleaning power with more pressure and that use less water or no water depending on the system.

You still need to make sure to get written quotes and references to ensure that the company is reputable.

Back to Annette's words of wisdom.

Annette points out that many warranties require professional cleaning at certain intervals (our Wear-Dated warranty requires professional hot water extraction at least once every 2 years) to keep the provisions of any warranties in effect. One exception is if your carpet carries the 3M warranty [e.g., Wear-Dated carpet fiber carpet from Mohawk with 3M Protector Advanced Repel Technology] which states that you can use Bissell ProHeat or ProHeat Pro-Tech deep cleaning machine every 12 months. Note that you must have a receipt for the machine and receipts every 12 months showing your purchased the Bissell cleaning formula.]

Definitely check the fine print on your carpet-related warranties in case you have other requirements like more frequent professional cleaning than every 24 months, etc.

Another plus for professional cleaning is the reapplication of topical fluorocarbon (again a requirement of our warranty after each even numbered cleaning) which preserves the beauty of the carpet.

Annette strongly recommends professional carpet cleaning every 12 to 24 months or often enough to prevent the carpet from becoming excessively soiled (light colored carpet depending on your lifestyle may need cleaning more often).

So there you have it.

Another resource to consider is Carpet Cleaning For Dummies from the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI).

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