Natural Stone Carpet - Cleaning?

mim45

Got Natural stone carpet fitted at the end of 2007 and needs an intense clean in high traffic areas. Partly our fault as house not fully finished before it went down so was subject to trademans dirty boots and site muck, finally getting the driveway done so hopefully the end of heavy dirt coming in ( I know took long time but anyone who has done a self build knows how it goes!) I have tried everything to clean it including hard floor cleaning machine, various mops and cleaning defices and even gone down on my hands and knees and scrubed the whole thing with a scrub brush which looked great when wet but dried back dirty. Any suggestions greatly appreciated or if anyone know professional who has experience cleaning this type of floor?

Dizzyblonde

If I were you I'd contact the people who supplied the stone carpet.
When we were building we looked at stone carpets but even in the showroom they seemed to have gone very dull in high traffic sections.

Lorelei

it sounds as though you are on the right track. This type of flooring needs to be cleaned with a rotary scrubber speed around 175-200 rpm, with scrubbing brush not pads.
No detergents or cleaning solutions are normally necessary.
When you have scrubbed an area then the soiled water needs to be removed with a wet vacuum cleaner.
I suspect this to be your problem. Mopping after using a rotary scrubber does not do the job. You need a wet vac and then just use a damp mop after.
What you are getting is where some of the soiled water has partially dried, then when you mop you wet it again and spread the dirt around. To effectively mop the floor you need to be using 1. two bucket system and 2 changing both clean and dirty water every 4 or 5 time you wring out the mop.
You will never take all of the dirt out of mop by rinising and wringing.
Professionals tend to use 2 or 3 mops and leave them to soak in between, the mops are then washed after 3 or 4 cleans.
Hope this helps

Lorelei

it sounds as though you are on the right track. This type of flooring needs to be cleaned with a rotary scrubber speed around 175-200 rpm, with scrubbing brush not pads.
No detergents or cleaning solutions are normally necessary.
When you have scrubbed an area then the soiled water needs to be removed with a wet vacuum cleaner.
I suspect this to be your problem. Mopping after using a rotary scrubber does not do the job. You need a wet vac and then just use a damp mop after.
What you are getting is where some of the soiled water has partially dried, then when you mop you wet it again and spread the dirt around. To effectively mop the floor you need to be using 1. two bucket system and 2 changing both clean and dirty water every 4 or 5 time you wring out the mop.
You will never take all of the dirt out of mop by rinising and wringing.
Professionals tend to use 2 or 3 mops and leave them to soak in between, the mops are then washed after 3 or 4 cleans.
Hope this helps

irishsancho

What you need is a small autoscrubber.

If you use any sort of mopping system on natural stone carpet you will you will leave residue behind.

I wouldn't use a rotary machine on this type of floor, they can dislodge the stones.

I would use an autoscrubber(vac and brush in one) with a cylinder brush.

If you need any further info feel free to PM me, I have cleaned hundreds of these floors.

Lorelei

The use of a scrubber/drier or any scrubbing machine with drier is recommended by manufacturers. If anything I would have thought that using a cylinder would damage due to pressure being applied directly of top of the stone and then in a horizontal movement when continuing the scrubbing as opposed to all agitation being applied horizontal at the top.
Having cleaned my first "steinteppich" in Germany in 1996 using both sytems since I have never experienced stones being lifted, although I'm not saying it is impossible.;)

Lorelei

Dont be dragging up old threads.