Surprise! Your Wool Area rug can be Cleaned.

At Luv-A-Rug I can receive anywhere from 10-30 calls a day about cleaning area rugs

I had just that type of phone call. It lasted almost 15 minutes and boy did she get a lot of information about wool area rugs and repairs.

The simple question of, "Do we dry clean wool rugs?" lead to fringe replacement and then onto hand repairs. I love shocking people when I tell them that we can wet wash a wool rug. Almost daily I encounter a client that still believes that wool area rugs should not only never be cleaned, but should never be wet washed.

Here are some myths and truths about getting a wool area rug cleaned:

• Wool rugs will shrink-----only when cleaned improperly. After a wool rug is made it is placed in a pool of water and scrubbed. Wool rugs are made to withstand cleaning.
• Wool rug will felt up like a sweater when washed-----since the wool on a rug doesn't rub against itself like a sweater in the wash it doesn't felt and tangle up. Cleaned correctly a wool rug looks the same after cleaning just with a lot less dirt.
• Beating out the dirt like grandma did is all a rug needs----that is one step, but what about the oily dirt that sticks to the bottom of the wool fibers? This is harder to remove by just a good whacking with a broom. FYI: Luv-A-Rug's first step in cleaning is turning a rug upside down and vibrating the rug to remove the loose insoluble dirt before we even touch the rug with water.
• Cleaning a wool rug will wear away the fibers-------not true at all, it is the dirt that sits at the bottom of the fibers that wears away the rug. Getting your rug professionally cleaned helps your rug last longer.
• Wool rugs only need to be cleaned when they look dirty or when it gets a stain---waiting years or decades to clean your rug is doing more damage than cleaning ever would. The loose dirt your rug collects every day rubs against the fibers and cuts them away making your rug look older than it is.
• Wool rugs should never be vacuumed----not only should they be vacuumed often to remove the loose dirt they should also be turned upside down and vacuumed. Using a rotating/beater bar vacuum on the back of your rug loosens the deep dirt and you get out so much more dirt. For the top of the wool rug use suction only as the rotating/beater bar pulls the small wool fibers and wears away the rug faster.
• Wool rug is the same as synthetic carpet and can be cleaned the same way-----NO! wool rugs are completely different and need to be treated as such. Using many stain removers or cleaners from a hardware//grocery store can ruin a wool rug. Most of the stain and carpet cleaning products are made for synthetic only. If the label does not say wool safe IT IS NOT FOR WOOL. 
• Wool rugs can be cleaned in home along with my carpet------Again NO!  If a wool rug isn't cleaned and dried properly it can damage your floor, cause mold/mildew to grow, cause your rug to rot, colours to bleed, the rug to shrink or smell bad. Professional cleaners know that to fully clean an area rug it must be done in a rug cleaning facility NEVER in your home.

Wool comes from sheep, it is hair that grows and gets cut and then turned into beautiful rugs, clothes and many other things. I tell people that wool is just like the hair on our heads. It requires water and soap to get cleaned and is sensitive to harsh solutions. Using anything too strong or harsh on our hair results in disaster, so why would we use it on wool?
I recently read that there isn't a science to cleaning a wool rug, but there is a soap science. Professional cleaners have the knowledge to know the boundaries of wool and what can be used to clean it.

Don't be afraid to ask the questions about how the company such as: how they cleans rugs and more specifically wool rugs, how long has the company has been cleaning area rugs (not carpet, but specifically area rugs), how the company treats specific trouble problems (pet urine, red wine, moth damage, flood damage).

You invested a lot into your rug make sure the company who cleans it has invested a lot into knowledge and training about area rugs.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

A well loved wool rug, deep down

The best way, as we know, to show what not to do is by using visual examples. On May 15th I got a prime example of what not to do to your wool flat weave area rug. The owner of this rug gave me full permission to write about his rug and what he did to it. He didn't even care if I used his name. He knew that he messed up and nothing I said or wrote would change that.
His area rug was dirty and like most of us, to save money, he decided to do it himself. That is not good thing when your rug is wool and the colours are not stable/colourfast. He popped his 2.5 by 3.5 foot area rug in the washing machine, because it fit, and when it was done the colours had run. He was also very lucky that it didn't shrink a lot only a little bit.
Unfortunately my before picture is in read only format so I cannot save it only view it. The important thing to note is that this little rug is very loved by it's owner and it is not because of any grand story. No, it is because of a weaving oops. It is because of the little nose looking appendage and the fact that his rug asymmetrical. It doesn't matter why someone loves their area rug, the important thing is that the rug is appreciated. Now that I look at the rug a little closer maybe that isn't an oops. Maybe the center piece of the rug is a bird type figure? If you have a better insight please share.
When the rug took a spin in the washing machine the ends started to unravel, hence why it came into Luv-A-Rug for repair. To re-weave the ends would have outweighed the rugs value, so instead we sewed a binding ribbon on the ends of the rug. By doing this it stops the rug from fraying further, but it also makes this two sided rug a one sided rug. It was quite a sight with me and the owner trying to pick the best side as the "good" side. The colour bleeding looked pretty much the same on both sides, so that wasn't a factor in our decision. It came down to the fact that the texture was a bit softer looking on one side, so that became the "good" side.
When our client came in to pick up his well loved rug, I rolled it out in a slightly dramatic fashion. I asked him if he was ready to see his new rug and then unfurled it out on the floor. He was over joyed at how it looked with the binding. He was very sweet and said that he wished he had more rugs for us to do because he was so impressed with our service. That is what we, at Luv-A-Rug, are about: We want you to fall back in love with your area rugs, so when the love starts to fade bring it to Luv-A-Rug. A good through cleaning or repair can make a big difference.
Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

Sentimental Axminster Area Rug

Axminster area rugs and carpet started being made around 1775 by Thomas Whitty in Axminster, Devon, England. The Axminster rugs were made to look like the more expensive hand knotted rugs of the time. Thomas Whitty succeeded very well with duplicating the intricacy of hand knotted area rugs. They are machine woven by a power loom with a wool fiber on a cotton and jute foundation. The unique thing about the Axminster weaving process is that up to 16 colours can be used. No other machine loom can use that many colours per pattern/design.
Axminster carpet is considered top of the line. It can be found in many homes of Royalty, fine hotels and casinos, theaters and cruise ships. It may look tacky when we see it in a theater or on a cruise ship, but it is very durable and is expensive. Okay I just went through ten different websites that claimed to sell Axminster carpet and area rugs and only found one that had any pricing. It was in British pounds and most of the carpet was between 20 and 40 pounds a foot. I believe to get Canadian dollars we pretty much double that number and for US dollars add a few more dollars onto the Canadian amount. With the durability of the Axminster carpet it is worth it because you wouldn't have to replace it every 5-10 years.
In my two years here at Luv-A-Rug cleaners in Victoria BC, I have seen many Axminster area rugs come for cleaning and repair and most of them have been the same kind of pattern and colours. That was until yesterday and today.


Yesterday I had a lady call and tell me that her husband was bringing in a rug for us to clean. When he gets here to drop off the rug he tell me that he doesn't really like the rug, at all! It was his wife's mothers rug and she wanted it cleaned so she could use it. He really didn't see any value in the rug so when I was about to tell him the cleaning cost I said, " Your Sentimental value of the rug is now....." He laughed and said that he had to ask this wife if she was okay with the cleaning cost. Of course she was okay with it because of her sentimental value in the area rug. Not much will out do sentimental value. I am not sure if the cost of this rug was $179.00, but if it was that was a pretty great price for a 9'x12' wool Axminster area rug. My favorite part of the rug, besides that fact that the husband is so against it, is the teal accents.
This was another thing that I liked about this rug. The tag says that this rug is for light to medium domestic use. I wish that area rugs made today had that kind of label then maybe there would be a lot less area rugs being thrown away due to the fact that they are too stained to use. Certain rugs shouldn't be used in the kitchen or in high use areas, Axminsters are not in that category.
Thanks for reading, RugloverMary, your local Victoria BC, Canada, Axminster area rug lover!

PS, a side note, my boss Dusty Roberts had a private tour of this rugs manufactures factory (Brintons)                                                                                         in  Kiddaminster England just last year!