Choose a professional carpet cleaning service that can provide this check and use one of the manufacturer-recommended methods. Free estimates are an industry standard, so it should be easy to call a few cleaners and compare prices. It helps if you know the exact square footage of the areas to be cleaned—it’ll ensure the estimates match the final bill. Also, find out exactly what’s included in the service. Will the cleaners move furniture, or do you have to do this in advance of their arrival? Do they vacuum before cleaning? Expect to pay a bit more for those that do.
Since carpet cleaning is an unlicensed and unregulated industry, checking references is more important than with other services. An incompetent cleaner can actually damage your carpet, so getting recommendations from friends and coworkers, as well as using consumer ratings services like Diamond Certified, can help you identify quality cleaners.
Jorge Amado, founder of AMRO Carpet Cleaning Services, advises to not put too much stock in a cleaner’s training claims. “There are no big secrets in carpet cleaning,” he says. “It doesn’t take thousands of hours to learn how to do it well. Most training is just a fancy retelling of what’s in the instruction manual for the cleaning system.”
Finally, before hiring a carpet cleaning company, find out about its warranties and guarantees. “If there’s a problem,” says Mr. Amado, “the company should be willing to correct it.”
