very old carpet with rubber underlay has rippled after hot water extraction clean

[bianca]

someone please help, we have never had this happen before and we are unsure of how to fix the problem.
The carpet is very very old i would have to say at least 30-40 years old, before clean we did not see any signs of the carpet having any ripples. once clean was finished there was no signs of any rippling. we also used cold to warm temp water in our portable machine as the customers hot water system had been switched off.
The next day in the afternoon the customer rang and said the carpet had waves in the middle of it...
we of course went straight around and had a look and could no believe what we saw..
at least 1 meter wide by 2 meter long in the centre the carpet had rippled..

could anyone at all give us any advise on how to proceed with this and hopefully fix the carpet??

 

[SamIam]

Give it a few days it will go back down there's lots of reasons why bad install blah blah blah but it happens

I always says it's an action back carpet that swell on the overlap of the cleaning stroke, it's rare, but it always settles down in a few days.

Looks like waves??????

Think about how some area rugs curl when they get wet usually polyester olefin cheap rugs.

 

[SamIam]

I have some customers whose carpet swells in the summer right in front of the swamp cooler.

The problem with restretching a carpet that's does this. When it goes back down it may pull off the tackless.

 

[bianca]

do you find that the carpet goes back to its normal state after a couple of days?

 

[SamIam]

post picture if you got them

 

[SamIam]

do you find that the carpet goes back to its normal state after a couple of days?

Every time. I've seen it 20 or so time in 30 years

 

[SamIam]

You could drop fans to help the process

 

[bianca]

i don't have photos with me atm.
have you ever had it happen with old carpet like this? it would have to be 30-40 years old easy

 

[SamIam]

Really if its that old and its only in one spot I wonder what kind of subfloor wood? Cement?

Hopefully it's not wood that buckled.

 

[SamIam]

What kind of backing is on the carpet???

Jute?

 

[Bob Pruitt]

have you ever had it happen with old carpet like this? it would have to be 30-40 years old easy

Yes. It happens. Bad installs and man made backing. I use to tell people when it happened that there are 2 dis-similar materials at work...the top fabric wants to relax when wet and the backing material that wants to tighten when it gets wet...so it waves and moves. Once the top and backing are dry all should be well. If the carpet had been installed properly at the beginning then this effect would have gone un-noticed.
If you flooded the carpet then the issue may be something beneath the pad. Normal clean and everything was working OK then you should be fine.

 

[The Wizard]

With those old rubber back carpets, cleaning can cause the rubber backing to delaminate itself from the carpet fibre. Chances are with this rubber backing nothing can be done to get the waves out. Sorry to be bearer of bad news.

 

[bianca]

no its on cement.. glued to cement then glued to carpet...
"WIZARD" i have a feeling you are correct if this is the case were legally do we stand? do we have to replace the carpet given that its 30-40 years old?

 

[SamIam]

If it's wood that popped and not the carpet swelling, you would need to pull carpet and pad back screw the subfloor back down reinstall pad and carpet.

Give it a few days if it doesn't go down plan on the later.

If you step on the bump and it hard it's the subfloor buckling if it has play pops up and down its the carpet and will go down

 

[The Wizard]

Over the 30-40 years, the rubber backing has deteriorated all on its own. Your scrubbing with your cleaning wand was the last step needed for the rubber backing to give way.

This 30-40 year old carpet owes the owner nothing. The carpet has lived a couple life times. If it wasn't you who cleaned it, it would have been the next cleaner that would have this mess on their hands.

The cost of this carpet originally was super cheap. There's a reason carpets are no longer manufactured with a rubber backing.

Have a nice sit down with the customer and explain the rippling was enviatable given its construction with the rubber backing and its age.

You should not be held responsible, as you did nothing, wrong but rather revealed a problem/issue waiting to happen. Kind of a ticking time ripple.

Best of luck

 

[bianca]

there is no wood under the carpet its laid on concrete. and i did push on a couple of the bumps and they do go down and pop back up

 

[SamIam]

Turn it over to your insurance they'll pro rate it.

Your customers got they're moneys worth out of that carpet.

 

[bianca]

i can not thank you all enough for your help and advice. i really appreciate the time you have taken to help me out.. thank you so much

 

[Bob Pruitt]

i really appreciate the time you have taken to help me out..

Best of luck!

 

[BIG WOOD]

Turn it over to your insurance they'll pro rate it.

Your customers got they're moneys worth out of that carpet.

I disagree with that. Insurance is for a contractor who has made a mistake, causing the customer's property to be damaged. It IS NOT for a contractor who's services revealed a problem that was already there.

Leave the insurance out. @The Wizard has the best solution to your problem.

This problem is the customer's problem. Not yours. If the carpet doesn't relax back down to it's original condition in a few days, then they'll have to deal with it.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Hard to tell for sure without being there, but for relatively small areas of delamination over concrete I've injected adhesive under the carpet and used a tractor to push it back down.

*tractor: a spiked roller that installers use to press carpet into adhesive

 

[SamIam]

Ya or a horse needle with latex to the backing weighted with books or something.

 

[Spurlington]

Pre existing condition .. customers issue not yours.

Guy has a rust bubble under his paintjob and he goes thru the car wash. Car wash blasts off the bubbled paint and now theres an area of missing paint. Car wash is not going to pay to have his car painted. Its a pre existing condition.

If you explain it right, you should have no issues ..

 

[Cleanworks]

It's much the same in British Columbia. The majority of carpet installers do use a power stretcher or any stretching device other than a knee kicker. You will see some carpets buckle just from your prespray. Even glue down, which seems impossible if it's glued down. I did a job a couple of years ago on cgd in a strata condo bldg. and the carpet buckled severely and the seams came apart in every door way. I had the strata contact the installer for advice and he told them he had used a "perimeter glue technique" so the carpet was glued at the edges but nothing holding it anywhere else. It did settle down fairly well but they had to re glue the seams. If a carpet is properly installed with a power stretcher or glued down properly, it should not buckle when cleaning. The other thing that installers do wrong, that they don't let the carpet acclimatize to the building they are going to install it in. Should be left overnight at least before stretching. Carpet cleaners don't need to be blamed for installers mistakes. We make enough of our own.

 

[SamIam]

My point about insurance is the carpet is 40 years old say they paid 2k 40 years ago. They depreciate 10% a year after 10 years it's worth $0.00,0000 nothing.

They got their money's worth.

So you could pay me to pull it out.

 

[bianca]

thank you matt...
I do agree with you as this carpet was very very old but how would you go about telling the customer that it isnt our fault because as far as they are concerned it wasn't like that when we started so they automatically blame us for this problem

 

[Lee Stockwell]

It's probably gone now.

 

[BIG WOOD]

thank you matt...
I do agree with you as this carpet was very very old but how would you go about telling the customer that it isnt our fault because as far as they are concerned it wasn't like that when we started so they automatically blame us for this problem

Tell them a comparison of how well a 30yr old pair of jeans will hold up in a washing machine vs a new pair of jeans.

Then break it down with the temperature of your water combined with the suction to make the carpet as clean and dry as possible. If the material is worn from age, extremely hot water and high suction has a chance to affect it. Ask them if they would rather have a weaker, less professional setup do the job, and maybe cause more problems with wicking and mold, vs. The service you gave.

 

[Brian H]

Tell them a comparison of how well a 30yr old pair of jeans will hold up in a washing machine vs a new pair of jeans.

Then break it down with the temperature of your water combined with the suction to make the carpet as clean and dry as possible. If the material is worn from age, extremely hot water and high suction has a chance to affect it. Ask them if they would rather have a weaker, less professional setup do the job, and maybe cause more problems with wicking and mold, vs. The service you gave.

"Why didn't you tell me that before you started. I would never have had it cleaned."

 

[Spurlington]

"Why didn't you tell me that before you started. I would never have had it cleaned."

I had a lady say the exact same thing about her degrading grout that happen to chip away