Carpet Wicking 101: What Is It and How to Avoid It?

By:Dan Carr在December 15th, 2022

Carpet Wicking 101: What Is It and How to Avoid It?

Do you notice stains reappearing on your carpets, even if you and your cleaning team just extracted them?

Recurring stains are often due to carpet wicking.

Carpet wicking can be an expensive problem when time, labor, and cleaning products are continually spent on the same stain, only for it to keep reappearing.

That’s not to mention the effect it has on building occupants and visitors, who may be judging the facility’s cleanliness.

Today, we’re going to go over the basics of carpet wicking, its causes, and most importantly, how to avoid carpet wicking altogether.

What is Carpet Wicking?

Carpet wicking is when a carpet is improperly cleaned, leading to recurring or reappearing carpet stains.

Recurring stains happen when dirt becomes deeply embedded in the carpet backing. As a result, a deep clean is required. When the carpet gets cleaned, the backing becomes flooded with water and cleaning agents.

然后,地毯会变干,水分和cleaning agents move from the base to the tip top of the carpet fibers. This is because carpets dry from the tip down, drawing moisture from the backing. During this upward draw, previously trapped dirt and soil particles move to the carpet surface as well.

So, in short, you can think of carpet wicking as the upward flow of dirt and soil to the surface of the carpet fibers during a drying process.

Having gone over the basics, let’s take a look at some of the common mistakes people make that result in carpet wicking.

Carpet Wicking After Cleaning: Why Does it Happen?

There are a couple of reasons why a stain would recur after cleaning, but they all stem from improperly followingcarpet cleaning procedures。

Using Too Much Moisture and Cleaning Agent

The usual reason is that too much moisture or cleaning agent is used when spot cleaning. Any excess moisture that touches a carpet will seep into the base and backing, which will kick off the wicking process after being left to dry.

Long Dry Times

Another reason you may experience wicking is that the carpet may be taking too long to dry. Carpet wicking can only occur when the carpet is still wet. The longer it takes to dry, the longer the carpet remains wet, allowing plenty of time for dirt and soil to travel up from the carpet backing to the tip of its fibers.

Not Cleaning Thoroughly Enough

The last reason we’ll cover that carpet wicking can occur is also the most straightforward; your carpets may not be receiving a thorough enough cleaning.

当地毯表面看起来很干净时，就会发生这种情况，因此保管人清洁认为他们的工作已经完成。实际上，地毯的设计使得当液体撞击表面时，它会沉降到背部并从那里散开。因此，在看起来很干净的同时，地毯仍然可以装满污垢和土壤。

Now that we’ve discussed the most common causes of carpet wicking, we can go over the solutions for it.

How to Avoid Carpet Wicking

我们提出了一些解决地毯柳树问题的解决方案。单独的，这些方法中的每一种都可以有效防止地毯柳树，但是当一起使用时，它们会创建一个高效的程序。

Clean Wet Spills Immediately

The most effective way to prevent carpet wicking is to clean a wet spill immediately after it happens. That way, there isn’t enough time for the spill to soak deep into the carpet backing.

Most times, if you’re able to blot with a chemical absorbent and cloth, you can删除大部分溢出物before it settles into the carpet backing. Even though it’ll require additional cleaning, the worst of the problem will be out of the way.

In this scenario, a good follow up to blotting with an absorbent is to use spot cleaner, followed by athorough rinse。然后,你想删除尽可能多的水分possible with aspotting machine, extractor, or wet/dry vac。Finally, set up an air dryer so you can speed up the drying process as much as possible. CERTO Wet Dry Vac

If you’re unable to clean the spill immediately, that's okay. You can still take measures to prevent carpet wicking in that case.

Utilize Interim Cleaning Procedures

Another great way to avoid carpet wicking is to rely on some solid interim cleaning procedures. Let’s look at two of the best interim cleaning methods for this situation.

1. Use anEncapsulation Carpet Cleaning Machine

Before you do any cleaning, the first step is to thoroughly vacuum the carpet, removing any dry dirt and soil. Then you can do the encapsulation procedure.

Encapsulation carpet cleaning is the process of removing contaminants from carpeting using a chemical solution that contains acrylic polymers.

We recommendencapsulation cleaning因为这是一种高效的低水分地毯清洁方法。封装清洁叶子几乎没有残留，在清洁过程中使用了非常低的水分，这是避免两种最大的地毯柳树原因的好方法。

Pro Tip:If you want to learn more about the encapsulation carpet cleaning process, check out our article,How to Perform Encapsulation Cleaning in 7 Easy Steps。

如果您没有封装地毯清洁机，那么吸收粉末是另一种有效的替代解决方案。

2. Apply anAbsorbent Powder

Absorbent powder is a catchall term for cleaning agents that use an absorbent chemical in powder form to clean liquid spills from a carpet. The powder is extremely absorbent; once applied to the wet area of a carpet, it absorbs all the liquid and leaves behind a dry, easy to vacuum mess.

Start by vacuuming up as much dry dirt and soil from the carpet as you can. Afterwards, generously apply absorbent powder to the carpet. Then, using a brush or carpet rake, thoroughly work the powder into the soiled area of the carpet. Once you’re done with that, cover the absorbent powder with a weighted towel or other cover.

在这种情况下，使用盖子，加权毛巾的目的是防止人们在地毯上行走并在整个地方跟踪吸收性粉末，而加权毛巾的好处是，它有助于将粉末压入粉末深处。地毯。

The powder will absorb the moisture and soil that otherwise would have caused carpet wicking to occur. After the powder has absorbed the moisture/soil and dried, you can proceed to vacuum it up.

If you still deal with carpet wicking after trying these interim cleaning procedures, it’s time to resort to a restorative cleaning method.

Utilize aRestorative CleaningProcedure

You know you need to do a restorative cleaning if liquid soil has dried deep into the carpet backing and if the interim cleaning procedures aren’t able to tackle a stain that keeps recurring. The best procedure for this job is acarpet extraction。

Perform aCarpet Extraction

Carpet extraction is performed to restore the appearance of your carpet and remove deeply embedded stains that interim procedures cannot. It is the most time and labor consuming method we go over, which is why it is saved for the toughest carpet wicking stains.

Acarpet extractoris a single machine that can perform all the necessary procedures to clean a carpet; it applies chemicals and water to the carpet, then it scrubs them in, and removes the dirty solution.

As with the previous cleaning methods, the first step is to vacuum as much dry dirt and soil from the carpet before beginning.

After vacuuming, apply an alkaline pre-spray to the carpet. You want an alkaline product because dirt is acidic, so the product will effectively remove deeply embedded dirt. Make sure to apply evenly across the carpet, so you don’t miss any deeply embedded stains that may not be visible on the surface.

Then, fill thecarpet extractorwith the proper rinse product. Extraction rinse is acidic, and will neutralize any residue left behind by the alkaline cleaner. Now, thoroughly rinse the carpet; the goal here is to remove as much soap and water residue as possible.

Last, and most importantly, the carpet needs to dry off. To ensure it is efficiently dried, and to avoid any chance of wicking, useblowers要么air dryersfor this step. Make sure it is completely dry before you return the carpet to use.

Final Thoughts

If you notice stains popping up in the same spot, especially after you do a deep cleaning, you may be dealing with carpet wicking.

Carpet wicking can be an expensive problem when it costs cleaning staff to repeatedly waste time and product on inefficient methods of dealing with the real issue.

The best way to avoid carpet wicking is to clean up wet spills as soon as they happen, if that isn’t possible, then your next best bet is to utilize low moisture cleaning methods in dealing with recurring stains.

When all else fails, consider using a carpet extractor. This method is intense enough that it should be able to solve your wicking problems, provided you ensure the carpet is properly rinsed and dried out afterwards.

If you continue to have issues with carpet wicking, considerreaching out to us。

At Imperial Dade, we have the equipment and knowledge to perform an array of commercial cleaning services that will get the job done. Our industry experts aim to exceed client expectations, using their on-the-job experience and best-in-class equipment to perform the highest quality cleaning services.

Feel free to reach out to one of our 100+ facilities,located across the US and Canada, for a free consultation, or to set up an onsite evaluation.