The Dry Factor- by Jeff Cross
After spending time, effort and expertise to get a carpet completely clean, you are one proud technician. But then the client asks: “How long will it take to dry?” You look the customer in the eye and wonder (to yourself, of course)… “Just how long will it take to dry?” You may have no idea. You wouldn’t be alone in the professional carpet cleaning arena.
We all know that we face the inevitable “How much do you charge?” question. The drying question is not far behind.
Horror stories
It’s been known to happen: You hear that a carpet is professionally cleaned and it takes a day — or even two days— to completely dry. Sometimes it takes longer. Hard to believe? Believe it.
That’s a time frame unacceptable in today’s world of modern carpet cleaning equipment and especially with the popularity of low moisture cleaning.
Any carpet still wet after 24 hours can be susceptible to musty smells and all kinds of complaints. That will only create trouble for your cleaning company.
The low moisture debate
When asked how long a carpet will take to dry, your answer will depend on many factors, such as the method of cleaning, the skill of the technician, how large the job, humidity levels and what you do to help remove the moisture before you leave the job site.
The skill of the technician is important. After all, it is possible to overwet a carpet even when using low moisture cleaning; this occurs mainly because of operator error. We are all human, and we make mistakes. Minimizing them is important.
Low moisture cleaning methods should — logically — take less time to dry, and may use no detectable moisture at all, such as with absorbent compound cleaning.
Use the best method to do the best job
Many cleaners today say that low moisture cleaning isn’t specifically about how much water is used in the process. They say that low moisture cleaning can be performed with a truckmount or high performance portable; low moisture cleaning isn’t particularly the amount of moisture applied to the fiber, but can be defined as the measurement of moisture remaining after cleaning.
In other words, if you use a system that has a typical water flow greater than traditional low moisture methods, but has a recovery system that leaves the carpet fiber as dry as a traditional low moisture method, you are still using low moisture cleaning.
Getting from wet to dry
You may notice that when you clean just one or two rooms in a home or commercial location, drying occurs rapidly — so rapidly that the carpet is dry to the touch by the time you put away your equipment and get ready to leave the job.
But when you clean several rooms, or the entire home or commercial location, odds are increased that residual moisture is higher than you anticipated, even though you followed the exact same protocol and used low moisture cleaning methods.
When cleaning more rooms or square feet, you increase humidity, and it will take longer to dry.
Practical application
As previously mentioned, using low moisture cleaning is a step to take to accelerate drying, simply because there is less moisture used in the entire process.
Regardless of the method, some cleaners feel that if they simply create ventilation by opening doors or windows that they will effectively accelerate drying.
However, commercial facilities typically have no option of outside air transfer, and have to rely on the heating and air system and your own drying tools.
But if you are able to do a physical air exchange (opening doors/windows, etc.) and the outside specific humidity is higher than indoors, exchanging the air by opening windows or doors will not reduce dry times.
If the outside air is more conducive to drying (lower humidity), then it would make sense to exchange the air. Otherwise, mechanical means such as optimizing the HVAC and using air movers would be best.
Drying tools
As you finish an area, place an air mover in such a way as to create the most airflow, which will sweep moisture away from the air immediately above the carpet and allow more moisture to take its place.
This is called “Bernoulli’s Principle” and basically means that airflow across a surface reduces air pressure, allowing moisture to move into that area. Think of how airflow creates lift for airplanes. That same principle helps in the drying of carpet fibers.
There are several types of air movers you can use. The typical air mover pushes air in one direction, yet others will create air movement across the entire floor surface, creating an envelope of dry air directly above the carpet pile, which means faster drying overall.
No matter what you do, implement steps that will get the carpet dry as fast as possible. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. They want the job to be clean — and dry — as fast as possible. Oh, and as cheap as possible. But that’s another topic.