Ethan rinsing the carpet
Hello! I spent day 3 of my One Woodard training with Ethan, one of our awesome Crew Chiefs, on two location jobs doing carpet and shower tile and grout cleaning. I was really excited for this day of training, because cleaning jobs have always been the core of our business and I knew the work we put into this day would pay off tenfold with how great the spaces looked afterward. Boy, was I right! Here’s a highlight of our day, equipped with before and after pics!
After the usual morning production team meeting, Ethan loaded up his van, confirmed our work orders, and we were on our way to stop #1.
This beautiful home in Clayton, MO requested our services to clean their upstairs carpeting and stairwell down to the main floor. When we arrived, Ethan asked the homeowner to walk us through each room, and she pointed out known problem areas, highly-trafficked zones, etc. Once he confirmed all areas, outlined our entire process for her, and provided a completion time estimate, we carefully unloaded our supplies from the van, set them up, and got to work! While some special circumstances may dictate a shift in our process from time to time, this particular job was straightforward and followed our basic 12-step process summarized below. As a note, our normal carpet cleaning process includes hot water extraction where we run hoses from our vehicles into your home, protecting every surface with mats/pads/etc. along the way. We do, however, have portable equipment if for some reason we are unable to reach the cleaning location from our vehicles (i.e. 14th floor of an apartment building, our van is unable to park nearby, etc.).
Left: Before picture of heavy soil next to the bed
Right: After cleaning
Quite a difference!
- I vacuumed all carpeted areas, removing any loose soil in preparation for cleaning, and shifted all small furniture items out of the way. (We will gladly move any small tables, couches, chairs, etc., for you!)
- Then, Ethan came through and applied a pre-treatment spray to all problem areas to help bring any deep-rooted soil to the top for extraction.
- For the actual cleaning, he used a cylindrical scrubber for heavily-soiled areas, then a carpet wand to rinse every square inch, and finally checked to make sure all spots were removed. This carpet cleaned up perfectly with this process, but had any problem areas remained, we would have added a little additional elbow grease by scrubbing them with hand-brushes prior to rinsing.
- After cleaning in each room was complete, we moved furniture back into place and set on top of protective pads to prevent damage to furniture or carpets while drying.
- We worked on the stairs last, and since they are generally pretty soiled due to traffic, we applied our pre-treatment, hand-scrubbed each step, then rinsed with the stair attachment.
Stairs are one of the most highly-trafficked areas of any home, but they don’t always have to look that way!
6. After cleaning, Ethan provided the homeowner with shoe covers and walked her through each room to make sure the cleaning was satisfactory – she was thrilled with our work! Kudos to Ethan for doing great work and to Woodard for having such an efficient, successful process!
In addition to the above process, we do offer topical treatments that can be applied including Scotchgard protection that comes with a 6-month spot and spill warranty, deodorizer, and an allergen treatment.
Stop #2 was a shower tile and grout cleaning job in Webster Groves, MO. As you can imagine (or maybe you’ve experienced in your own home), running water can eventually cause tile and grout to turn yellow or take on mildew. Luckily, it can look brand new again with a little TLC. There are different processes that can be used to clean tile and grout – for example, if we’re dealing with substantial discoloration, an acid rinse may be the best bet to getting it back to gleaming condition. However, this shower contained natural
Applying an alkaline tile cleaner to help loosen dirt before washing.
Right – Before cleaning
Left – After cleaning, and like new!!!
stone with a glazed coating and had brushed metal fixtures and a glass door, so we avoided this method since it would have caused severe damage to the entire unit. For this job, Ethan chose to apply a mild alkaline tile cleanser, scrubbed problem areas with both a soft bristle and harder rubber bristle brush, then used our hard surface extractor (similar to a power washer) to rinse the dirt away. Since we weren’t able to use the acid wash, Ethan couldn’t guarantee that the yellowing would be completely reversed, but this shower really did shine like new once we were finished. Upon rinsing, we dried the entire shower to remove water spots and show the homeowner how nicely their shower was renewed with our tile and grout service! She was thrilled with the work we were able to do, and impressed by how great her shower looked!
