Carpet Cleaning in McLean, VA
Nearly every job we take here involves wool, whether it is a hand knotted rug in a formal room or a broadloom runner carrying the whole staircase. That is why carpet cleaning in McLean is usually two jobs under one roof, and the two are not cleaned the same way.
Two kinds of rooms under one roof
A McLean house usually has a living room and a dining room that see a few evenings a year, and a family room, a back hall and a stairway that carry everything else. The formal carpet is not dirty the way people mean when they say dirty. It is dusty, flattened in the lane by the doorway, and gray at the baseboards from years of filtered air. The family room is a different problem, and the two get different chemistry and different dry time. We walk both before a hose comes off the reel, at no charge and nothing owed after.
Wool sets the rules here
Most of the broadloom in these houses is wool or a wool blend, and wool decides how we work. It holds close to a third of its weight in water before it feels damp, so it needs more vacuum passes. It is damaged by strong alkalinity, so we stay between pH 5 and 8 and finish with an acid rinse that leaves the fiber where it is stable. What people call steam cleaning is really hot water extraction. On synthetics we run the jet near 180 degrees Fahrenheit; on wool we bring the heat down and let dwell time, usually 10 to 15 minutes, do the work.
Stair runners
A long stair run is the most worn textile in the house. A stair tool is about a third the width of a wand, so sixteen treads and risers take roughly as long as a bedroom. We work top down and keep moisture low so nothing wicks into the tack strip or over the nose of the tread.
The rugs leave, the carpet stays
Hand knotted rugs are not cleaned on your floor. The first real step is pulling several pounds of dry grit out of the foundation, and wetting it in place only turns it to mud. So hand knotted rug washing runs on a pickup and delivery schedule, normally 4 to 7 days, while carpet cleaning finishes the day we are there. Most people booking rug cleaning in McLean hand us the rugs on the same visit.
- Wool broadloom, cleaned in place with a controlled acid rinse.
- Hand knotted and antique pieces, dusted and immersion washed off site.
- Machine made area rug cleaning, sometimes possible in place on a hard floor.
Everything else in the room
A dog that has picked one corner of the family room needs the pad treated, not the surface, which is what urine and odor treatment means. Pet odor removal in McLean is booked with the floors. Sofas and wing chairs are cleaned by fiber code, not by looks, and upholstery cleaning on a silk blend is a different job than on a synthetic weave. Lined draperies in the formal rooms hold years of airborne dust, and drapery cleaning happens while the room is empty anyway.
Scheduling around 22101, 22102 and 22106
We cover McLean, Virginia, in Fairfax County: 22101 and 22102 hold the houses, and 22106 shows up on mailing addresses more than on driveways. A house with stairs and three rooms of hot water extraction runs three to five hours. We can usually offer a same week appointment, and if you want upholstery cleaning in McLean on the same visit, say so when you call so the day is sized right. We are the same carpet cleaners in McLean who work Tysons and Great Falls.
Recent carpet cleaning work
Real jobs in Northern Virginia homes, photographed on the day.
What this looks like
A real job, before and after. Drag the handle.
Drag the handle. The left half is where we came in.
Questions we get about this
Can you clean wool carpet without shrinking it?
Yes, as long as the moisture and the chemistry are controlled. Shrinkage comes from soaking a wool carpet and leaving it wet against the tack strip, or from a high alkaline prespray that swells the fiber. We keep the pH between 5 and 8, finish on the acid side, make extra dry passes with the vacuum, and set air movers before we leave the house.
Do you wash hand knotted rugs at the house?
No. A hand knotted rug is dusted from the back until the dry soil stops falling out, then immersion washed and dried flat, and neither step can be done cleanly on a living room floor. We roll and tag the rug at your door, wash it at the plant, and bring it back in four to seven days with the pile groomed back into its natural lay.
How long does a full staircase take?
Plan on roughly the same time as a bedroom for a standard flight. The stair tool is about a third the width of a wand, so every tread and riser is a separate pass, and we work top down to keep dirty water off clean carpet. A house with two flights and a landing adds close to an hour to the visit.
The formal living room looks clean but smells musty. Why?
Rooms that see very little traffic still filter air. Fine soil settles at the baseboards and under furniture where a vacuum never reaches, and wool holds that soil and the odor with it. Nothing is visibly wrong until you clean half the room and see the line. Low traffic rooms usually need cleaning every two to three years for that reason alone.
How far ahead should I book?
A few days is normally enough, and we can often fit a same week slot. Fall and the weeks before major holidays fill first, since that is when people want the formal rooms done before guests arrive. If you want rugs picked up as well as carpet cleaned, book about a week and a half out so the wash and delivery land before your date.
Will the damp carpet damage my hardwood or baseboards?
Not with the moisture we leave behind. The wand pulls at roughly fourteen inches of mercury of vacuum lift, so the carpet comes up damp rather than wet, and we make additional dry passes at the perimeter of every room. On wool we also drop the water volume. Where carpet meets hardwood at a doorway we hand groom the edge instead of flooding it.
What should I do before you arrive?
Vacuum if you can, and pick up small items from the floor: toys, shoes, pet bowls, cords and anything under the beds. Point out spots you have already treated yourself, because a store bought spotter changes how the fiber reacts. If a rug is going with us, clear a path to the door. We handle everything else, including the furniture we can move safely.
Do you move the furniture?
We move what two people can carry safely: chairs, side tables, ottomans, light sofas. We leave beds, large case goods, pianos, and anything with electronics on it, and we clean around them, which is normal practice in a house this size. If you want a room cleaned wall to wall with nothing in it, empty it before we arrive and tell us when you book.
Have a look at it in person
Walkthroughs are free and take about fifteen minutes. We agree the scope together and point out anything that will not come out before a hose comes off the truck. Over a decade in Northern Virginia and that has not changed.