Carpet Buckling After Steam Cleaning

If your carpet has buckled after a cleaning your most immediate action should be to not allow anyone to tread on it until it is completely dry.

Carpet buckling after steam cleaning.

Steam cleaning by inexperienced technicians can also cause buckling. Most times the buckling can be seen on inspection prior to cleaning that s why it is important to write it down ahead of time as a preexisting condition. In many cases if the carpet is not too far gone the drying itself will shrink the carpet. The water is absorbed differently in the different layers of the carpet and creates tension clay in glue layer for example expands.

Humidity is recognized as the biggest contributor to carpet buckling. Even in this scenario the carpet cleaner should take extra time do an extra vacuum pass to extract excess moisture. If you notice that buckling happens only after you steam clean your carpet then running your air conditioning during and after the steam clean process will help the carpet dry faster. If you are renting a machine it is not uncommon to run it over the carpet too quickly and not fully extract the cleaning solution back out of the deepest areas of the carpet.

With the exception of the backing separating from the carpet ripples and buckling after cleaning are not permanent. As the weather warms up the carpet backing will relax more and voila. A carpet that ripples after a professional carpet cleaning is almost always a symptom of an underlying cause. If the glue was not mixed properly spread properly or cured properly wrinkles can occur.

The only instance this may occur is when the carpet is so dirty more than 2 or 3 passes have to be made to get the dirt out. Carpet steam cleaning should rarely cause your carpet to buckle. Once moisture levels return to normal though your carpet may lay flat again provided the buckling isn t too severe. The moisture in a humid environment will pierce through the carpet and cause it to swell.

Wet carpeting can stretch and form ripples that will disappear once the. The air conditioning reduces the moisture in the air and it helps the carpet release it s moisture faster. Avoid walking on the affected areas until the carpet is completely dry. One last possible cause of carpet wrinkling though the most unlikely is manufacturer defect.

Bubbles start to appear in the carpet. The cause is due to the carpet not being installed correctly when it was new. If your carpet presents ripples and buckles immediately after cleaning it is possible the carpet is not yet fully dry. And that s true for both winter and summer.