March, 2018 | BCS Cleaning Specialists

The answer to this question is very subjective, as it depends on so many factors.

Most places will say mold develops within 24 to 48 hours, but remediation specialists will often tell you that those numbers are highly subjective and that mold often doesn’t start until many days later, sometimes as many as 18 days later!

In the Salt Lake Valley and Park City, we are blessed (depending on your perspective!) with a very dry atmosphere, thanks to our high elevation, desert location and high amount of salt, so damp is much less of an issue for us than for most of the US. Even when prevailing damp IS an issue, due to a pipe break or water spillage or some other reason, mold takes a lot longer to take hold here than it does in other places.

The bottom line is: if you’ve had a pipe burst in your home and your carpets have been flooded, you don’t need to panic that if they’re not bone dry within a day or two you’ll have vast alien colonies of mold proliferating with reckless abandon throughout your home. That simply won’t happen. The worst that will happen in that timeframe is that your home (and specifically the wet area) will smell damp and unpleasant, and the carpet itself may be damaged or stained. But destructive mold takes longer to develop, especially in the dry conditions we experience year-round in Utah.

That being said, mold development is not 100% predictable, so it’s worth getting the damp issue fixed as quickly as possible. And the sooner you have your carpets professionally cleaned, the less likely it is that stains will permanently set in. BCS Cleaning Utah are specialists in both cleaning and removing middling amounts of excess water from carpets. Give us a call today at 801 561 1730 to schedule your FREE carpet remediation consultation.

Disaster has struck! A pipe burst and your carpet got sopping wet! Or someone spilled a bucket of water all over the carpet! What to do?? In our two-part series, we’ll walk you through how to do with water spills, large and small, on carpet.

How To Deal With Small Water Spills

It’s very frustrating when someone manages to slosh water all over your carpets. But follow our simple steps as quickly as possible to protect your carpet from mold and replacement.

1. Remove water as quickly as possible.

This might seem obvious, but if at all possible, don’t leave it to the air alone to do the job of drying out your carpet. Use absorbent towels and steady blotting pressure (don’t rub) to sop up as much water as you can.

1. Use fans to speed up carpet drying process.

A regular household fan will keep dry air moving across the surface of your carpet and help to dry it out faster.

1. Use a dehumidifier to dry out the room.

Even a small, household dehumidifier will speed up the process and prevent nasty damp smells.

1. Steam clean carpet and flooring.

BCS to the rescue! Our specialist carpet cleaning machines don’t just get carpet wet to clean them – they also contain extremely powerful vacuums specifically designed to suck water out of carpet fibers. These alone will be able to remove a lot of the excess water from your carpets. Plus there’s the added advantage of us being able to then actually clean your carpets, which further reduces the chances of mold spores surviving.

1. Sanitize walls and baseboards to remove mold spores.

You only really need to think about this step if the spill happened right next to a wall or baseboard. If the wet carpet is not contacting either directly, it should remain unaffected.

1. Check furniture and remove to air dry in another location if necessary.

Leaving damp table legs in contact with damp carpet will just cause both to degrade faster, through either mold, rot or damp-damage. Separating them to dry separately will speed up the whole process and potentially save both.

When you’ve done all the above, give the professionals at BCS Cleaning Utah a call at 801 561 1730. We are experts in disaster remediation for carpets and will be at your home in a jiffy to rescue you from damp-related doom.

Disaster has struck! A pipe burst and your carpet got sopping wet! Or someone spilled a bucket of water all over the carpet! What to do?? In our two-part series, we’ll walk you through how to do with water spills, large and small, on carpet.

How To Deal With Big Water Spills

It’s pretty stressful, although not uncommon during our Utah winters, when one of your pipes bursts or starts leaking, especially if there is carpet involved. But follow our simple steps as quickly as possible to protect your carpet from mold and replacement.

1. Remove water as quickly as possible.

This might seem obvious, but if at all possible, don’t leave it to the air alone to do the job of drying out your carpet. If the water is sitting above the surface of the carpet, get a cup and bucket and remove as much water as you can by hand. Then use absorbent towels to sop up as much as you can of the rest.

1. Use fans to speed up carpet drying process.

You can usually rent commercially powerful fans from Home Depot or similar, but just a regular household fan will help to keep the increasingly damp air moving.

1. Use a dehumidifier to dry out the room.

Even a small one will help. Rent a larger, more powerful dehumidifier if possible.

1. Steam clean carpet and flooring.

BCS to the rescue! Our specialist carpet cleaning machines don’t just get carpet wet to clean them – they also contain extremely powerful vacuums specifically designed to suck water out of carpet fibers. These alone will be able to remove a lot of the excess water from your carpets. Plus there’s the added advantage of us being able to then actually clean your carpets, which further reduces the chances of mold spores surviving.

1. Sanitize walls and baseboards to remove mold spores.

1. Check furniture and remove to air dry in another location if necessary.

Leaving damp table legs in contact with damp carpet will just cause both to degrade faster, through either mold, rot or damp-damage. Separating them to dry separately will speed up the whole process and potentially save both.

When you’ve done all the above, give the professionals at BCS Cleaning Utah a call at 801 561 1730. We are experts in disaster remediation for carpets and will be at your home in a jiffy to rescue you from damp-related doom.

We want your carpet cleaning experience to be as efficient, speedy and effervescently wonderful as possible. There’s a few things you can do even before we arrive to make your carpet cleaning even better.

1          Vacuum the carpeted areas to be cleaned. This lifts surface dirt and dust from the carpet and enables our sprays and vacuums to penetrate even further and remove even more dirt from your carpets.

2          Remove wobbly, breakable items like tabletop lamps and brick‐a‐brac, and place them somewhere safe while we’re cleaning.

3          Remove as many small pieces of furniture as possible, such as dining chairs, ottomans, and small tables from the areas you’d like us to clean. This enables us to reach more areas more thoroughly with our specialist cleaning equipment.

4          Secure floor-length curtains and drapes at least two feet off the floor using a clip or hanger. This makes it easier to reach the areas under your window and ensures your curtains are protected.

Please let our technician know BEFORE we start cleaning about any cleaning concerns that you may have, particularly about specific spots or stains. Your carpet cleaning specialist is trained in many specialized spot-cleaning procedures and if you know what caused the stain, that will help us to give your carpet more personalized attention and clean it even more thoroughly.

Give BCS Cleaning Utah a call today on 801 561 1730 to schedule your next carpet-cleaning session.

Goatheads, aka Tribulus Terrestris (and quite the terrestris it is too!), are the plague of the Salt Lake Valley and Park City. They are a pain, literally and metaphorically. They get everywhere, stick to everything and poke holes in everything (usually in feet, their favorite). And heaven help you if they get into your carpet. Yikes, they’re like the devilish little villains in Disney movies who leap out and bite you when you least expect it. Only these particular little villains get lodged deeper into your carpet every time you tread on them, making it increasingly more difficult to extract them.

So what to do? Is it possible to poke these little sneakies out of their cosy carpet-nests and give them the heave-ho (translation: get rid of them)? Why yes, it is!

If the nasty little pokies have been newly-tramped into your home on the feet of some unsuspecting guest, they will be at their easiest to remove right away. Grab a sticky de-linting roller or a long piece of very sticky tape and press it onto the goatheads to pick them up and throw them away easily. You can also chase them around on hands and knees with a pair of tweezers and a piece of kitchen paper, if you’re feeling particularly thorough.

If the little devils have nestled their way into your carpet fibers, it’ll be slightly trickier to pry them out. If you know roughly where they are, you can ferret them out again with a pair of tweezers. Just be careful to only kneel on a patch of carpet you know to be safe, lest you end up with nasty knee pokies!

Once you’ve extracted what you believe to be all of them, run over the area slowly with a strong vacuum cleaner, making sure to run it over the same area from multiple angles to make sure you collect any spines that broke off the original goathead.

If the goatheads are firmly entrenched or you just want to make extra sure they’re eradicated, it’s time to call in the professionals. Give BCS Cleaning Utah a call today on 801 561 1730 – our powerful carpet vacuums will suck the little suckers up in no time, restoring instant peace of mind (and flesh) to you and your feet.