Household Bissel Steamer - Bad idea?

[nitronic]

I have an upright Bissel household carpet steam cleaner with accessory hose/brush. Would it be a dumb idea to use that for cleaning the floor mats/carpet in the car with this machine? And if so, use typical carpet cleaning solution or something specific for automobile carpeting?

[Stokdgs]

You may be able to get this to work provided you try not to wet the carpet too much and use a high foaming soap solution that requires a lot of rinsing, which will - yeah, wet the carpet too much and get down to the pad underneath..

I have never found a "carpet cleaning solution" such as what is sold under that name or others do much more than foam like crazy, and be really hard to rinse completely out.
You will know its not all gone if the carpeting dries "hard", and does not look right. It is still full of soapy mixture and will just attract more dirt that will not go to the bottom of the carpets and they will look dirty really faster than normal..

It will always be better to vacuum A LOT, brushing the carpeting in different directions as much as possible to get as much embedded stuff out of the bottom of the carpets.
Then, hopefully, use a low foaming really good APC, I like to just spray it on lightly, then use a good brush like the Tuff Shine white bristle tire brush, and get this into the dirty places, and then come back and steam, rinse lightly, and extract..

You can still do most of this process and get great results, but you will need to be careful, and patient with the Bissel which does not have a huge amount of water lift, and press down, and wait for it to start moving the moisture laden with whatever you moved up with the brush process out..

Good luck with this !
Dan F

[nitronic]

Thanks! I assume APC = All Purpose Cleaner. I`ll try this. Luckily it`s a new car and hasn`t been horribly soiled yet.

[JohnZ3MC]

I`ve had great success with a Bissell Little Green something something something. it`s not exactly a professional machine, not by a long shot but for family car carpets cleaned once in a while, it works well.

There`s a great carpet cleaner solution called Folex and it`s readily available. In Canada I get it at Canadian Tire.
Spray the Folex onto stains and difficult carpet areas, agitate with a plastic bristle brush then extract with the Bissell.

Just recently I removed a couple of really nasty stains from a buddy`s truck carpet and he was amazed at the results. Folex and the Bissell did the real work, I accepted the accolades with suitable humility then I drank one of his beers with absolutely no humility at all.

[Accumulator]

I`ve had a lot of different Bissell units over the last 30-some years and their steamer was the only thing that I had real issues with (burned me but good when it broke).

But yeah, go ahead and use it but remember what it does (spray steam) isn`t always what you want to do certain jobs.

Don`t melt synthetic carpet with the steamer, it can happen easier/quicker than one might think

I`ve had a few *VERY* good carpet cleaning products, oddly enough some of them were OTC Consumer Level stuff that I expected to be [crap]. If you can find the Woolite/OxiClean stuff in the silver spray bottle it`s *VERY* good IME.

[Lonnie]

One of the reasons carpets turn brown is because carpet cleaning chemicals and water "wick" deep-down dirt from the fiber that where never removed by simple towel or microfiber wiping of the carpet. Hot water extractors do this, which is why professional detailers who have this equipment and know how to use them achieve such good results. A home-use extractor is OK, but it does not have the ability to heat the water or provide the necessary suction to dissolve and lift out the dirt like a commercial extractor.

I have a Bissel Green Machine, but I only use it for carpet chemical &water removal. I do not apply carpet cleaning solutions with it; I only use it to extract.

One suggestion I got from this forum is to dry-brush the carpet during the vacuuming process. Yes, it`s slow and labor-intensive, BUT the idea is to remove as much debris and dirt when it is dry and vacuum it up, rather than trying to extract it (or wipe it up with a microfiber towel) when it is wet. A good small brush and an old stiff-bristled toothbrush are what I use. By brushing as I vacuum, I can remove ALOT of ground-in or hidden dirt or along edges where vinyl trim meets the carpet or seat rails attach to the floor. This works really good if you do not have an extractor and plan to just wipe the carpet with said microfiber after scrubbing and shampooing.

Another trick is to power wash carpet floor matts removed from the car. Trying to do these matts by hand is tedious at best and the results are less than expected. Again, if you do not have access to a power washer, (Like me) turn them over with the carpet side down on a smooth concrete floor and tap (AKA beat) them vigorously on the floor to dislodge embedded dirt trapped in the fibers. You can then vacuum the floor of the dirt that fell out and repeat the process as many times as needed until no more dirt appears on the floor. Works great for floor matts that have never been cleaned over the winter or never been cleaned, period. To get out encrusted salt stains, I use HOT vinegar (try a Pyrex measuring cup in a microwave to get it boiling) and brush vigorously with an old tooth brush to remove the salt. I do NOT pour the vinegar directly on the stain. I dislike (AKA hate) the smell of vinegar in my car, BUT it will smell that way for a while, but at least the salt is somewhat removed. Then I will brush and shampoo the matt.

I find that using shop vacuums to "extract" excess water is a waste of time and very inefficient. You are better off to control the amount of water you put down during the shampooing and brushing process. Don`t over-saturate the carpet during the cleaning process. As stated at the beginning, this is what leads to browning of the carpet fibers without proper extraction.

Drying the carpets is another issue. If you live in the south or where it`s humid, like along the ocean, you know all about mold and mildew that forms on wet fabrics. I find that a simple box window fan(s) can work if allowed enough time to blow on the carpet with car doors open. Here in the upper Midwest, the sun seems to do a pretty good job during the summer and early fall.

[Accumulator]

Lonnie- I agree completely about using the carpet machine`s sprayer to *rinse only*. Every once in a blue moon I might feel the need to inject cleaning chemicals with it, but 99.999% of the time I only use it with water. One of these days I`ll upgrade to an actual "rinse agent" but I haven`t done it yet.

I will say that the sprayer on my Century is whole different ballgame from the ones on my Bissells, and/but yeah gotta watch that I don`t oversaturate things with it.

[Stokdgs]

One of the best carpet cleaning, headliner cleaning, etc., APC`s in the world WAS Meguiars APC+
They stopped making it in the gallon sizes, I believe, a few years ago..
It may be still available on the web somewhere..
If you can find it and dont want to buy it, tell me, and I will buy it..
It is low foaming, cleans incredibly well, even headliners without leaving a ring, smells very clean and things stay that way - leaves no residue to attract dirt, etc..
Dan F