HOW DOES THE DRYSDALE'S PROCESS DIFFER FROM TRADITIONAL, OR “STEAM" CLEANING?

Most (90%+) conventional carpet cleaning is marketed as "steam" cleaning, although no actual steam is involved. Since there sometimes is visible water vapor being emitted from the cleaning tool or "wand", the traditional carpet cleaning industry long ago pounced on the word "steam" even though their water temperatures are far below what qualifies as steam. Of course this is misleading, and intentionally so, but is justified by its practitioners as astute marketing. 

Steam cleaners either operate from what they call a "truck mount", or they roll a portable "extractor" into the house or business premises. Both are very noisy, heavy, and technically complex machines that inject a lot of water and/or water/detergent mix into the customer's carpeting, and then remove some of that liquid by means of suction. Another term for this process is hot water extraction, or HWE. The HWE folks want everyone to believe that you have to use all this water so as to be able to suck out all of the dirt that is deep down into the carpet fiber. But what they are actually doing is using water pressure to force a lot of that soil even deeper into the base of the carpet. Often, after several days of dry-out time has elapsed, the customer notices that many of the spots, and perhaps an entire "traffic lane" area, is starting to look soiled again, even though it seemed to look clean just after the wet cleaning work was performed. What has actually occurred is "wicking". "Wicking" is the re-emergence of soil up the carpet fibers during the drying period, so that when the base of the carpet is finally dry (maybe after several days) these spots and traffic areas appear as if they were never cleaned in the first place. 


RUGSUCKERS
Steam (HWE) cleaners may refer to themselves and each other as "rugsuckers". The highly skilled rugsucker may well be able to clean his customer's carpets without causing overwetting. Overwetting can be described as soaking the base of the carpet, sometimes the pad under the carpet as well, and worst case - the floor beneath them also. Despite the competence of some experienced HWE people, it should be noted that the carpet cleaning industry employs a lot of low-paid, low-skilled, and poorly motivated helpers who are most likely to be the ones responsible for all of the horror stories customers tell of soaking wet carpets, seemingly endless dryout periods, and the re-appearance of stains and soil via wicking.