Most of the carpet we clean in Bexleyheath wears out in the same three places: the hall of a 1930s semi, the stairs going straight up from it, and a through lounge that runs from the bay at the front to the garden doors at the back. Bedrooms usually just need freshening.
The visit, start to finish
The van goes on your drive if you have one, and in DA7 almost everybody does. The machine stays outside and two hoses come in through the front door, so nothing wet gets carried across the house. We vacuum first with an upright, since dry grit comes out best while it is dry. The traffic lanes then get a pre-spray matched to the fibre, left for a few minutes to loosen the soil.
The clean itself is hot water extraction. The wand pushes heated water down into the pile and the vacuum draws it back up in the same stroke, carrying the loosened dirt with it. Edges, and the corners behind doors, are done with a small hand tool. On the stairs each tread is worked on its own, and the risers get a lighter touch because they mostly collect dust.
Old wool over floorboards
Plenty of houses north of the Broadway still have their original parquet or pine boards under the carpet, and plenty of that carpet is wool twist that went down decades ago. Wool holds water, and boards do not like it. In those rooms we keep the solution lighter and make extra drying passes, so the backing ends up damp at most and the floor underneath stays dry.
Hard water is the other local habit. Bexleyheath sits near the top of the London range, and where somebody has used a supermarket shampoo the pile often has a dull coating that grabs fresh dirt within weeks. An acidic rinse on the final pass takes it out.
The price, room by room
Size of room, mostly. Bedrooms are £36 each. Living rooms are £43, a knocked-through lounge £61, a small lounge £55. A kitchen-diner, a study or a conservatory is £29. A full flight of stairs is £41, a short one £29, and a landing adds £9. A hallway is £22.
Ordinary traffic soiling is part of the room price, and we charge a Saturday at the weekday rate. Booked on its own, a single bedroom comes up to the £67 minimum for one-off work.
Room rates
| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| Carpet, one bedroom | £36 |
| Living room | £43 |
| Through-lounge | £61 |
| Stairs, per flight | £41 |
| Rug, under 3m² | £35 |
| Rug over 3m² | £51 |
| Bedroom carpet, booked with a tenancy clean | £29 |
| Living room carpet, alongside an end of tenancy | £36 |
| Stairs, with a move-out clean | £35 |
After we leave
In a warm house you can pad about in socks after two or three hours. Wool over boards takes longer, so keep the heating on and a window open a crack. Anything we moved goes back on foil squares; leave those under the feet until the next morning or the legs can dent the damp pile.
Got rugs lying on top of the fitted carpet? The rug page explains how we treat those. Marks that survive a general clean are covered under stain removal, and the price list covers the rest.
Questions we get asked
There is parquet under our carpet. Could the water reach it?
Not if the job is done properly. On wool laid straight over boards we use less solution, make extra drying passes and feel the backing by hand before moving on. If the carpet has a hole or a lifted seam anywhere, tell us, because water finds those first.
Our semi has a knocked-through lounge. Is that two rooms?
No. A through lounge is one room at £61, measured the full length from the front bay to the garden end.
We both commute into town. Can you come on a Saturday?
Yes. We work seven days, 8am to 7pm, and a Saturday is charged the same as a weekday. An early Saturday start means the carpet is dry by mid-afternoon.
We used a hire machine and now the carpet feels crunchy. Why?
Shampoo left in the pile. The water round here is hard, and hard water with a foaming shampoo leaves a residue that dries stiff and attracts dirt. We flush it out with an acidic final pass. A heavily loaded carpet may need a second slow pass on the day.