Carpet Cleaning

[RJP56]

Anybody out there have any ideas on how to clean/shampoo your carpeting. Ours is a light biege color and starting to show dirt marks from the last two projects. Would really like to brighten it up.

Thanks!

[east tx skier]

I have always used regular Tide (no bleach) dissolved in warm water. Apply liberally with a brush and rinse into the bilge with a pressure washer on a low setting. After several rinsings, I get as much of the excess water out as I can with a shop vac. Allow to dry in the sun.

I have on one occasion sprayed some Downey fabric softener cut with water onto the carpet after cleaning, let it sit, then rinsed and vacuumed the excess again. Supposed to help revitalize the carpet nap. My results were marginal, but I'm told I was a bit too conservative with the fabric softener.

[RLS]

I would not try the Fabric softener. Most of our carpets are made of polypropylene. This is different than most house carpet. They are solution dyed and very color fast. CC has used a relatively high density carpet in most of their boats. Polypropylene yarns love oil and it is difficult to remove it from this type of carpet. Tide would not be a bad choice. You might contact a Professional cleaner and ask what they use. You would then follow the same process as with Tide. The key to "bright" carpet is get all the cleaner out. Cleaner (soap) will attract soil quickly. I suspect fabric softener will also re-attract soil.

[east tx skier]

Good to know. For what it's worth, I've not had any visible adverse effects from using the fabric softener. But it did take a lot of rinsing to get it out of there. But your point about anything residual left in the carpet attracting dirt is well taken.