Being in the Professional carpet cleaning industry for more than 15 years, I have been asked this question numerous times by clients “ what Cleaning method is best for my carpets?”. 

Mainly two types of cleaning process are available  for carpet cleaning in Melbourne. Steam Cleaning (Hot Water Extraction System) or Dry Cleaning (Bonnet Cleaning).

Let’s Deep dive more into this cleaning method and how it works? 

Steam Cleaning / Hot Water Extraction

As the name self explains, this method uses hot steaming water to clean your carpets. Carpet cleaning solutions get pre-sprayed on the carpets as the first step of cleaning, which helps to break the stains and soiling. Hot water extraction steps is the next step after pre sprayed has been applied on carpet. This machinery helps to spray high pressure hot water onto the pre-treated carpet and sucks the dirty water out straight away. Basically you can say it is a deep cleaning method for carpets. It helps to extract out dirt, stains, bacteria, allergens and bugs like dust mites and moths.

At Oz Carpet Cleaning Melbourne, we have added one more step in our steam cleaning process to give heavily stained or soiled carpets a new life (super deluxe cleaning package), where we use soft bristle brush with Rotary Scrubber to scrub the carpet before hot water extraction. It is the same as if you have very dirty cloth and if you use a brush before washing. It will give you better results compared to just straight away washing. With nice weather and air circulation, after steam cleaning, it will take approximately 3hrs to 4hrs for your carpets to dry. Shiny carpet like new.

Dry Cleaning/Bonnet Cleaning

This method does use a little bit of water but not as much as Steam Cleaning. Carpet area gets pre-sprayed with cleaning product and followed by Rotary Scrubber with Bonnet Pad which scrubs the carpet and Bonnet Pad absorbs the dirt which has dispersed with the cleaning product. This method does require dry vacuuming to remove the leftover once the carpet is totally dry. Basically you can say it is a top surface cleaning method for carpets. It does not help to extract out dirt, stains (no good with stains like blood, vomit or urine), bacteria, allergens – because it just rubs the chemical on carpet. Carpet will dry quicker after cleaning with this method, approximately 45min to 1hrs.

Now, what method to choose? 

Personally, I prefer Steam Cleaning as it is a deep cleaning method. And I highly recommend Steam cleaning over Dry cleaning as Carpets cannot be cleaned from top surface like tiles or wooden floor, it does require deep cleaning. Dry cleaning will clean only the top surface of the carpets which will make your carpets home for bacteria and allergens.