Do you rake

I started off raking most my jobs when I started, but now rake none.  I don't think raking make the carpet look any better or has any thing with setting the pile unless you use an RDM (which sucks btw).  When I have cleaned my house with an RX-20. Then when the carpet dried I would run a vacuum over it.  This would remove any swirl mark or line from a carpet wand.  I noticed with a rake you would get marks that were harder to vacuum out also.  So unless I'm missing some think thinks a waste of time.

Raking is not a waste of time. 

I usually rake in the fall!    

Vacuuming and racking are fundamentals of good tradesmanship. It should become automatic.

They're called helpers - cheaper to do it yourself then it gets done right.

I notice most don't run 2 men. I could see that on large commercial or if a person wanted to stay in the bussiness and their back and sholders were causing problems. Who knows I may be there in a few years.

I guess I'll correct that, I do rake after I apply Scotch Guard.  As far as drying times I'm sure it is minimal.  I always instruct customers to vacuum after cleaning for three reasons.  Makes carpet softer, removes cleaning patterns, last and most important there is still a percent of dirt that you don't remove that dries to the fiber. If you were to walk on it after it dried the dirt would break off and get worked back in, where the vacuum will pull more out.  I'll also spray an encapsulator  for really dirty carpets after cleaning is done.  Again still haven't herd of any good reasons to rake.

Edited by bryan - 06/February/2007 at 8:56pm