The Spiker Method: the exact sequence used on every job

Why the sequence is published at all

Most carpet cleaning companies describe their process in adjectives. Deep. Powerful. Advanced. Those words are not a process, and they give you nothing to compare.

This is the actual order of operations on a Spiker job, with the reason for each step. You can hold any company to this list, including this one.

Step 1 — Inspection and blacklight

Before anything is quoted, the carpet is walked and inspected. Fiber type and construction are identified, because nylon, olefin, polyester and wool respond differently to heat, agitation and pH.

Traffic lanes are examined for whether the graying is soil that will release, or fiber that has already bloomed. This is the most important honest conversation in the job, because bloomed fiber does not come back and nobody should be paying for a result that is not physically available.

A blacklight goes on for any home with pets. Urine deposits fluoresce, and homeowners are frequently surprised by the map, because a deposit that soaked into the pad is invisible in daylight. You are told what will improve and what will not, before any work starts.

Step 2 — Dry soil removal

Loose dry particulate comes out first. This is the first stage in the S100 sequence and it exists for a physical reason: once you introduce water, dry soil becomes mud, and mud is far harder to remove than dust.

Every job gets pre-vacuumed. The only question is who does it — free if you do it before we arrive, $25 per room if we do.

Step 3 — Alkaline pre-spray

An alkaline cleaning solution goes down onto the fiber. Alkalinity is what breaks the bond between oil and fiber. Oil does not dissolve in water, so without alkaline chemistry the oil stays where it is — and the oil is the thing holding the sand in place and discolouring the fiber.

Solution strength is matched to the fiber and the soil load, not applied at one setting to every house. Wool in particular is alkaline-sensitive and gets different chemistry.

Step 4 — Agitation and dwell

The solution is worked into the pile with a groomer and then given time. Agitation and time are two of the four suspension variables in the S100 framework, alongside chemical action and heat.

Dwell is the step cheap jobs skip, because it looks like nothing is happening. It is also the step that does most of the work — spray and immediately extract and you are rinsing the surface.

Step 5 — Hot water extraction

Solution is delivered through the wand at 230-250 degrees F, 4.0 GPM, 1,200 PSI, from a HydraMaster Titan 575 truckmount. Hot water extraction (commonly called steam cleaning) is the method the Carpet and Rug Institute and most major carpet manufacturers publish.

Heat is one of the four suspension variables and it does direct work on oil. It also does mechanical work: nylon and polyester are thermoplastic, so crushed pile recovers some of its manufactured set. This is where the released oil, and the sand that was stuck to it, gets flushed up out of the pile.

Step 6 — Acid rinse

This is the step that separates a carpet that stays clean from one that resoils in three weeks.

The alkaline solution that released the oil is still in the carpet. An acid rinse neutralises it, brings the pile back toward neutral pH, and is extracted out along with what the alkaline released.

A carpet that was never rinsed looks identical on the day of service. The difference appears later, in how it feels and how fast it soils again.

Step 7 — High-CFM extraction

Recovery runs through a Competitor 4007 tri-lobe vacuum blower at 400+ CFM on 100 feet of two-inch hose.

Extraction is its own separate stage in the S100 sequence, not a side effect of cleaning. It is the mechanical force that determines what physically leaves the building versus what stays behind to dry back into the fiber. When the truck pulls away, the soil is in the recovery tank on it.

Step 8 — Grooming and drying setup

The pile is groomed so it dries standing in a uniform direction rather than matted in the direction of the last wand pass. Airflow guidance is given for the specific rooms. Four to eight hours is normal, and airflow is the variable you control after the truck leaves.

Step 9 — Walk-through

Every job ends with a walk of the work. What improved, what did not, what is permanent, what might wick back and need a second pass, and what maintenance will actually protect the floor going forward.

Most callbacks in this trade are not cleaning failures. They are expectation failures, and this is the step that prevents them.

Step 10 — Protector, where it makes sense

Carpet is manufactured with a protective coating on the fiber, and traffic and embedded sand abrade it away. Once enough is gone, sand contacts the fiber directly, the fiber blooms, and the colour change is permanent.

Reapplying protector annually is the mechanism that prevents that outcome. It also has to go onto clean, neutralised fiber — applied over residue it bonds to the residue, which is the usual reason protector "did not work".

What Spiker does not do

Spiker does not pull carpet, does not replace padding, and does not seal subfloors. That is construction work and it belongs to a carpet installation or restoration company.

We never guarantee a result on pet urine. A sub-surface enzyme flush is an attempt to remove as much of the deposit as can be reached without opening the floor. The complete fix requires replacing the pad and sealing the subfloor.

Spiker does not use topical or colour-enhancing sealers on indoor natural stone, and discontinued colour sealing on grout. Saying what a company will not do is part of an honest process description.