Some have wondered how clean is clean when washing a rug. Sometimes this concern has overwhelmed reasonable expectations. When it came to the issue of whether or not a wash tub was effective for washing rugs, an argument was launched to discredit its use by asserting cross-contamination would occur. More clamors have been made about this matter than dirty underwear being mixed with other linens in one’s own washing machine at home.
When some made comparisons to use with washing clothes and other textiles it did not seem to provide enough satisfactory reasoning. So I ran the argument by large laundry processing plants that dealt with this issue of clean and healthy textiles everyday for years. Several company owners actually came to my shop to witness how we processed rugs. They were humored by the remarks on the carpet and rug forum boards after I showed them how people would argue to discredit the wash tub. Their huge facilities utilize large washing machines that can contain 100s of pounds of unsanitary hospital and hotel bed linens, and other garments. They process them all at the same time in the same water with chemistry. To quote one big time operator in the Maryland/DC area about all this falderal being made, he simply said, ‘people obviously don’t understand chemistry. Let the water and chemistry do their job.’
Nonetheless,
Centrum Force® decided to test an extreme situation in the realm of rugs. Even though we don’t wear rugs like a set of underwear, or use them for bedding to sleep on, we nonetheless have them in our home or place of business and in general walk, crawl or lay on them. So to return a healthy rug back to the consumer was important to us. We wanted a scientific conclusion to the assertions being made about cross-contamination in a
Centrum Force® wash tub.
In short, this is what I did at my facility. We used an independent testing firm that field tested as well as lab tested the results each step along the way. (We used Michael Pinto of Wonder Makers Environmental
http://www.wondermakers.com)
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The purpose of this project was to provide proof, by scientific data, on whether or not cross-contamination would take place when multiple rugs are washed in the same time. Furthermore; we desired to establish a protocol for how we would do cleaning in our little rug shop using the tools and chemistry available to us. The details of the results were only past on to other
Centrum Force® equipment owners. We paid for the testing and we are not interested in giving it away free on public forums or blogs.
First: We bought a new handmade Tibetan rug and submitted it to raw sewage for 7 days in a sealed plastic bag. See picture of it bagged and in my rug pit. Next we opened the bag and got a field reading of all contaminates that were in the rug and sectioned out a piece of that rug and shipped it for offsite testing.
Next: We treated it with U-Turn and allowed a dwell period and flushed it out in the centrifuge with rinse water.
The wash tub was prepared for normal use. One cup of Di-Chor (typical product used in swimming pools and hot tubs), one quart of Secret Sauce, and one quart of Knock-Out. A brand new uncontaminated rug was put into the wash tub and the sewage contaminated rug was put in as well after it was flushed by rinse in the centrifuge. (The sewage contaminated rug still had high levels of unhealthy contaminates in it after flushing, although reduced from levels we had when it came out of the bag.) Even with high readings on containments on sewage rug, we nonetheless washed both rugs in the same tub simultaneously for a period of time – 90 minutes. We were testing each respective rug at specific increments of time during the duration of a wash.
We finished the process by centrifugal spinning and drying.
Summary: Without going into all the proprietary numbers and other test results, one thing came out clear that is relevant to this thread that I will share publicly. NO cross-contamination took place. We thought it was worthwhile to have someone else, in another facility do a science test that would follow similar protocol. It was done by another wash tub owner. The result: Consistent results that demonstrate the conclusion. There was no cross-contamination.
I would offer a warning: Although we believe sewage damaged rugs can be remedied and returned safe to the customer, please do not deduce from what was revealed in this post that it is accomplished by the only procedures I revealed. To note, chemistry and drying rugs quickly with high heat are essential elements needed to be successful.
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