The History of Carpet Cleaning: Part II

By Al Moses

In the early 1960’s, another “new” system hit the market. Steam cleaning. The first point that should be cleared up is the word “steam.” A very unfortunate choice of words. While technically water is vapor, hence steam, anytime it is warmer than the surrounding atmosphere there really isn’t what we would call live steam. Water does vaporize (steam) when it is warmer than ambient air, so the FTC in all its majesty decided we had to call them steam cleaners. Very misleading. Live or super-heated steam would ruin a carpet. The temperatures would be far beyond safe limits for any carpet dyes or heat set. Technically, this method should be described as hot water extraction.

Actually, steam cleaning systems, as hot water extractors, go back to the late 1700’s. The early 1900’s saw several systems that worked on the same principle. It was not until the 1960’s that it was refined sufficiently for general use. Again, the first workable “steam” cleaning units were in plants operated by cleaners.

The rebirth was in Southern California in a cleaning plant where the operator decided to make his unit portable, so he could take it to the home. Just as earlier equipment had been adapted to on location cleaning by making it portable. Evidently he wanted to keep this as an exclusive system, and be the only one in the country to offer steam cleaning in the home. Employees and coworkers who had used this method realized the profit potential. Some of them struck out on their own, and several units were offered to the carpet cleaning trade.

Each of these operators claimed patent rights, and either franchised their operations or attempted to. Several faults delayed acceptance by the established carpet cleaners. The first was price. Most of these units were very high priced. Fortunes were made as operators and manufacturers franchised these units to their customers, each with outrageous claims. Large franchise fees, high priced machines and a continuing high percentage of the operation were bound to limit the number of potential customers.

Once again, the established carpet cleaner was reluctant to accept anything new or different. Most of the marketing and advertising claims for these machines were grossly exaggerated, if not outright falsehoods. This led the builders of these fabricated units to go to the untrained and unqualified to sell their wares. There was no established technology, or state of the art, so most of the machines were not all that good a buy at any price. Not knowing any better, the purchasers of these new machines flooded the yellow pages and newspapers with ads wildly written, making all sorts of crazy claims. Many of these ads intimated that the established cleaner was in reality a thief, doing great harm to the carpets with his old scrubber or foamer.

Naturally, the established cleaner struck back. Another war was declared. Rather than promoting clean carpets, both sides spent a lot of time and money trying to gut-shoot each other. As late as 1970, the staff of the Institute of Rug Cleaning, Inc. was criticized for even publishing an article concerning this method. Many reputable carpet cleaners refused to even explore the system’s possibilities, and without actual knowledge of what they were talking about, started or carried on wild rumors about damage to the carpet and the dangers of steam cleaning.

The majority of the purchasers of the new units had little, if any, background in cleaning. All they had to go on was the word of the salesman who sold it to them. In most cases, he had never cleaned a carpet either. They were sold on the idea that this wonder machine could do any and all cleaning. Very little, if any, training was supplied. Usually, the purchaser cleaned his own house as a training exercise. The manufacturers who had jumped into a very lucrative field didn’t know how to clean either. In fact, the manufacturers still to this day don’t always know what they want as an end result when they build a machine.

Most machines on the market in the late 1970’s are really nothing more than slightly modified versions of what was produced in the 1960’s. A recent survey shows that of over 350 brands of machines on the market, less than 10 of them will achieve an efficiency of 50%. Very few carpet cleaners have any manufacturing knowledge. We have yet to meet a design engineer in any of the companies polled that had ever been to a carpet cleaning seminar or cleaned a carpet.

Most of the early machines put down too much water and didn’t extract enough, so a lot of carpets were ruined by inexperienced operators. An untrained operator can still over-wet a carpet, but the problem is improving.

Gradually by trial and error, this new group of operators, the steam cleaners, gained efficiency. At the same time, and mostly as a defensive means, the established firms were forced into acquiring steam cleaners. By 1971, “steam” had proven itself, and at the 1972 AIDS International Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, the new method was described as a superior way to clean carpets. Major manufacturers and chemical companies were entered into the field. Training seminars were being held and clinics, sponsored to orient the newcomer with the field and its procedures, were being organized. Steam cleaning has finally come into its own. What will be next?