Oriental rugs are fragile in nature. They are composed of a natural fiber, most oriental rugs are made of wool. This is a very porous substance, which means it soaks up dirt, dust, allergens, stains, urine, spills, etc. In order to keep your rug looking it’s finest, you must take care of it, this entails, vacuuming it weekly, and having it professionally cleaned at least yearly. You want to pick a person who is well qualified, or else the finished product may not be to your liking, such as, it might shrink, bleed, or the fibers could start falling out, which means you need a new rug.
The proper way to clean wool rugs, is to make sure you don’t use a high heat, make sure the pressure is low, use an acidic cleaner, and you want to dry them out as fast as possible. If you follow these steps your rug will not be damaged. You may also have to use a dye lock product depending on what kind of dye was used in the dye process.
Wool rugs are either hand made or machine made. Of course the hand made wool rugs are more expensive and can range in price. These rugs can be $1,000 to $100,000 depending on many different factors, such as, size, country it originated from, who the retailer was, etc. The more expensive your rug is, usually means the more fragile or delicate it is, but not always.
The way we clean wool rugs is we use an acidic pre spray, which breaks down the particulate matter, such as, dirt, allergens, dust, stains, traffic lanes, etc. Then we extract it using an acidic mixture, then we dry pass the rug to make sure there is no residue left behind. We then dry them out using big blowers, the drying time takes about 2 hours, then we roll them up, put them in plastic, and hand deliver them to the customer.
Most stains can be lifted out of the rug, but not always. Since this is a natural fiber, it can be much harder to get them out, depending on a multitude of factors, such as, how long the stain has been on there, whether the customer tried to get the stain out themselves,etc. I would not recommend trying to get stains out of your rug by yourself, most of the time you will do more damage than good, and you can lock in the stain permanently if you use the wrong product. I would assume almost all products purchased at your local store will not work for getting the stains out. Many of the most common stains we see are urine and we can usually get the stain out, and the smell.
You can also Scotchgard your wool rugs, this is highly recommended. Scotchgard protects your fibers from the inside out, so the particulate matter cannot bond to the wool fibers, which means, when you vacuum your rug, more of the particulate matter, dust, dirt, allergens, etc. will be trapped in your vacuum, thus protecting your rug so you can get the longest life out of it. Natural wool fibers are like paint on your automobile, if you have a bunch of dirt on your automobile, and rub your hand across it, it is going to be scratched, it’s the same concept with wool rugs. The Scotchgard is relatively cheap to apply to your rug, for instance, if your rug is 10 feet by 10 feet, that’s 100 square feet, which would cost $35 dollars, we charge .35 cents a square foot for Scotchgard, so if your rug is smaller it will cost less, and if it is larger it will cost more. When you are talking about fine wool rugs you want to protect your investment, so this is a minimal charge to be assured you have the added protection.
We will always inform the customer on what we think we can or can’t do for the rug. We will also tell you how much it is going to cost, as we always strive to exceed the customers expectations.