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Conquering Wet Dog Odor in Carpets and Upholstery

We all know that smell: "Stinky." "Pungent." "Overwhelming." "Like something died." These are just a few of the ways your customer might describe the "Wet Dog" odor. Your job is ...

Help Your Customer Help Themselves: Tips for a Cleaner, Longer-Lasting Carpet

Your customers are likely to take your advice about carpet care seriously. This gives you an opportunity to help them take better care of their carpet investment—and to demonstrate ...

Upholstery Cleaning: Understanding Cleaning Code Tags

Manufacturers of furniture fabrics have voluntarily begun to label some fabrics with recommended cleaning instructions to assist in consumer care and help reduce related cleaning ...

Upholstery Cleaning: What to Inspect First

Any problems that might occur due to preexisting conditions should be noted on the work order and signed by the customer. Any limitations should be mentioned as limitations to ...

Carpet Construction: Creating and Coloring the Face Yarn

A single strand of carpet fiber is called a filament. Filaments are often crimped to add bulk and body, and are then spun together to create a yarn. One yarn is called a “single” ...

Upholstery Cleaning: Inspection and Qualification

Average consumers have little idea about how to care for their furnishings and have rarely, if ever, been given any useful advice by the decorator or salesperson who sold them ...

Ten Expert Ways to Protect Your Truckmount

A truckmount may be one of the most expensive pieces of equipment you own. So, how do you best protect it? Regular truckmount maintenance is the key. When you buy a truckmount ...

Maximize Your Warehouse Use and Build Your Business

Are you about to move into a larger warehouse space, or are you thinking about remodeling your existing facility to make it more efficient and practical? Here’s some simple ideas ...

Carpet Construction: Woven Carpet

Carpet that is woven on a mechanical loom represents a small category of carpet installations. This construction uses a weave of yarns called “foundation yarns.” The foundation ...

Choose Your Words Carefully

Is this carpet "filthy," or is it "heavily soiled"? The words you use with your customers matter. To retain and get repeat customers, how you communicate with them is often ...

Carpet Construction: Tufting

Tufting is a common method for constructing commercial and residential carpet. In this method a “tuft” or small bundle of yarns is stitched into a backing material with a series ...

Carpet Construction: Common Elements

There's a variety of carpet construction processes, yet most tufted carpets have the following in common: Face Yarn: The material on the top of the carpet, often referred to ...

Seeing is Believing: Show Customers the Dirt that Lurks!

Carpets are great collectors of soil and dirt and the sources of soiling are infinite. Anything inside or outside a building can be tracked in, blown in, spilled or dragged ...

Show Some TACT!

Successful soil removal depends on these four fundamentals: temperature (heat), agitation, chemical action, and time. The acronym T.A.C.T (sometimes called C.H.A.T., Chemical, ...

Urine Stains and Odors: Old vs New

One of the most important issues with urine stains and odors is to understand the difference between fresh urine deposits and stains that have been there for a long time. Fresh ...

Don’t let your truckmount freeze up!

During the colder months of the year, you need to keep your truckmount safe from freezing and running properly throughout the “freezin’ season.” Basically, there are four ways ...

What Are YOU Worth?

A story is told about a man who noticed the elderly Salvador Dali drinking coffee in a café. The man approached the prominent Spanish surrealist artist. “I’m a great fan of yours,” ...

Job quote? Better to see it first!

Never provide a quote on a cleaning job without seeing the site in person. If the customer insists on a quote, point out that you don’t know what the customer’s needs are until ...

UV Light: The Cleaner’s Superpower

It’s not exactly X-ray vision, but a good ultraviolet or UV light truly can help you see what may be lurking in carpet and upholstery. Not only does a UV light reveal the presence ...

Five Easy Ways to Build Customer Trust

Here’s a few simple ways to help create a good first impression and build trust with your customers. Drive clean, presentable vehicles. Do your vehicles and your ...

Resist temptation: concentrate on the correct concentrations

Most detergent products are designed to work at a specific concentration. The formulation, concentration and pH are a good measure of the strength of the solution. The temptation ...

The Bone Scraper: A Whale of a Tale

Carpet bone scrapers are an essential tool for removing dried or solid debris from carpets and upholstery before proceeding with spot removal. But why are they called bone scrapers? These ...

Controlling foam in your truckmount tank

Need to control foaming in your carpet cleaning equipment? Read on to see why you really, really DO need to manage foaming, but first, here's a quick tip: Saturate a sponge with ...

Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum

It's estimated that 75%–79% of all soils in carpets are dry, particulate soils. Proper vacuuming can remove up to 50% of these dry soils, and does so far more efficiently than ...

The Three Keys to Fast Drying

We like to see carpets and upholstery dry within 24 hours, and sooner if possible. Reaching that goal can be a challenge at times, and the longer fibers stay wet, the greater the ...

For Best Results, Keep the Air Moving

Professional airmovers should be part of every cleaner’s equipment portfolio. Why? Ordinary box fans are okay for ventilation, but they just don’t move enough air to dry carpets ...

Treating urine contamination in dense materials

Un-Duz-It Unleashed is a proven solution for urine stain and odor control product for carpets and upholstery. But did you know that Unleashed also works well on hard surfaces? If ...

Keys to Upholstery Cleaning

To clean any surface, including leather and fabric, we must first understand the basic fundamentals of cleaning. If any of these fundamentals are neglected or misused, the quality ...

Getting the Gum Out

Chewing gum, the scourge of cleaners everywhere, is one of the more challenging substances to remove from carpets, upholstery and fabrics. The reason gum sticks so well is ...

Carpet Warranties: Don’t make promises you can’t keep

Do customers ever ask you about the warranty on their carpet? The question will likely come up when you’re the bearer of bad news about their carpet. When you tell them a stain ...

Adapting Your Cleaning Chemistry for Optimal Results

How often do you adjust your cleaning chemistry and cleaning procedures to the soil load in the carpet fiber? It’s easy to fall into a rut and use the same products and process ...

Let’s Talk Chemicals

Manufacturers of cleaning equipment and chemicals work hard to help the public understand the safety of their products. Some perceptions are accurate. Some are not. The term ...

Mustard Stains Are the Worst!

One of the toughest stains you will ever encounter is mustard. Why? It’s not because of the mustard seed color. Most mustard preparations contain turmeric, and turmeric has a strong ...

Going, Going ... Gone Green! Part 1

There is no shortage of information about the topic of green and environmental stewardship. Even with all the news coverage, government reports and scientific studies, much confusion ...

Going, Going ... Gone Green! Part 2

The Pursuit of Green No human activity, whether farming, communication, photography, and certainly not cleaning, will ever have zero impact on the physical environment or on people's ...

Going, Going ... Gone Green! Part 3

The Perception of Green No matter what we might think about "green" practices, we need to be aware of our customers' opinions and understanding of the concept. If they feel strongly ...

This equipment pays your salary — take care of it! Part 1

Truer words have never been spoken. Whether you’re an owner-operator or a multi-truck operation, nothing is more annoying or potentially costly than unanticipated breakdowns. You ...

This equipment pays your salary — take care of it! Part 2

We all know about applying a spray lubricant to the blower each night to help keep moisture off the blower lobes. But to further limit the accumulation of moisture in the blower, ...

Power Through Any Upholstery Cleaning Challenge

Cleaning upholstery presents unique challenges with delicate fabrics, difficult stains and the potential for over-wetting. But with the right system, you can clean upholstery with ...

Ain’t No Party Like a Facebook Watch Party

Everyone knows that a party is only as good as the planning put into it (…college years aside). At Legend Brands, we’re committed to utilizing the latest tools in social media ...

Restorative Cleaning: Winning the Race Against Dirt

Operators are often in a “race against dirt” – a race they feel they can never win! Facilities work hard to keep their floors, fixtures and furniture looking clean and looking ...

Restorative Cleaning vs. Maintenance Cleaning, or Why Autoscrubbers Don’t Cut It

Legend Brands visited the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Canada, and studied the floor cleaning procedures used. With over 570,000 m2 of space and 800 stores, it is the largest ...

Truckmount Vacuum Pump Maintenance

Of all the parts of a truckmount, we get the most inquiries about the blower (technically, it’s called the vacuum pump): how to maintain it, and how to keep it running at peak ...

Q&A with Glen Wilson: What does the future hold for truckmount engines and heat management?

In the U.S., state and federal emission regulation changes for industrial engines have had a significant impact on the truckmount industry. Legend Brands engineers work to develop ...

How Bioenzymes Work

Many industries use enzymes and bioenzymes, and it's helpful to understand how they work. Enzymes are complex molecules, typically proteins, that make biochemical reactions occur ...

When Temps Rise, So Can the Odors

When warmer weather approaches, it's a good time to review how higher temperatures affect odor generation. First, volatile compounds - the source of most odors - are more easily ...

Q&A with Michael Roden: The Future of Truckmounts.

I see a couple of trends in the truckmount industry. First, the size and load capacity of the vehicles are going to shrink. That puts the pressure on manufacturers to produce smaller, ...

Q&A with Michael Roden: Key Truckmount Features

What features should a cleaner consider before buying? Truckmount buyers should consider three things. First, bear in mind the strength and reputation of the company, ...

Q&A with Michael Roden: Expanding Your Opportunities with a Truckmount

What are some ways truckmounts can expand a carpet cleaner's business opportunities? Hard surface cleaning is lucrative and immediately available to the truckmount owner, ...

Q&A with Michael Roden: Truckmount or Portable?

Gasoline prices continue to be high. Does it still make sense for a carpet cleaner to own a truckmount instead of a portable? Portables have their place in the cleaner's tool ...

Ten things to know before you buy a truckmount

#10 Don't buy on price alone. Every day cleaners and restorers search the Internet for the best deal on equipment hoping for a better price than the quote provided by their trusted ...

What Causes Urine to Glow Under UV Light?

Most of you have probably used a UV light to detect urine spills in carpets, upholstery and flooring. But why does urine glow like that? And more importantly, why do urine spots ...