Recently there has been a greater awareness and surge in popularity of Oriental and Specialty Rugs. The on-location cleaner may be called upon to clean these rugs. Due to a lack of control over the drying process and the need for post-cleaning steps, we never recommend cleaning these rugs on-location. Rugs should be cleaned in a plant facility even if it is only a "mini-plant". If the on-location cleaner does not have the place for this type of cleaning, wholesaling these rugs to a large in-plant cleaner may be a viable alternative.

Pre-Cleaning Inspection
The most important step in the cleaning process is the inspection prior to the actual cleaning. Look for problems such as; bleeding from previous cleaning, browned fringes, excessive wear, tears, urine and rust stains, dry rot and moth damage. Asking your customer to place a value on the rug may help to determine whether or not it is if investment quality.

Cleaning Techniques
Traditionally in-plant cleaning of rugs has proven to be the most safe, thorough and complete method. Here rugs are inspected, dusted, washed and placed in a controlled dry room on special poles. The rugs after drying, are again inspected, vacuumed and then returned to the owner. Most Oriental and Specialty rugs can be wet cleaned, however, thorough pretesting should be conducted prior to cleaning. Silk rugs require special cleaning and grooming techniques and therefore should be left to the seasoned professional.
In following the steps of the plant cleaner, the rug should be removed from the owner's home and dusted to remove dry soil. A variety of cleaning methods can be used on these specialty rugs including dry foam, hot water extraction, or rotary extraction (Chemstractor). The professional cleaner should follow the plant cleaner's steps as outlined above, however, the more likely that potential problems will manifest themselves which makes the pre-cleaning inspection so important. After dusting, problem-free machine-made rugs of synthetic fiber construction can be steam cleaned with Liquid 77 or Formula 90. OneClean would be more appropriate if the face fibers are wool (extremely soiled rugs can be first shampooed with Oriental Rug Shampoo). Cotton fringes may be cleaned with Powdered Haitian Cotton Upholstery Cleaner and an upholstery tool. The rug should then be groomed and placed in a drying room.
Chinese and certain other rugs are prone to a variety of unique problems which manifest themselves in cleaning. These problems include poor wool quality, shading, bleeding through of cartoons, shrinkage, etc. The safest cleaning system to use is to dust the rug and then clean with a hot water extraction machine using Colorfast For Rugs. The fringes can then be cleaned as outlined above and the rug thoroughly groomed and placed in a dry room.
True hand-tied Oriental rugs that can withstand total immersion should first be tested with the ready-to-use cleaning solution. This should be applied to the rug then blotted between two white towels and allowed to stand fro 24 hours. The optimum cleaning system would include dusting of the rug then rotary shampooing with Oriental Rug Shampoo. The rug should then be thoroughly flushed, squeegeed and placed in a drying room.  If complete thorough immersion and flushing of the rug is not possible (due to problems above), the rug is not could be shampooed with the Chemstractor using Orintal Rug Shampoo and then rinsed with a portable or truck-mounted extractor using Textile Rinse. Once rinsed, proceed to the treatment of the fringes and drying techniques as outlined above.
If the fringes have browned, use Chemspec's Rx For Browning after the rug has dried. It is, however, imperative to rinse this material from the fringe after treating the browning.
If Oriental Rug cleaning is a new field for you, plan to attend a Chemspec Oriental Rug Cleaning School. Also, teaming up with a well-established in-plant operation may be a good way to "get your feet wet".