Area Rug Cleaning
Spiker cleans area rugs from $2 per square foot, $2.50 with enzyme treatment and $3 with Scotchgard, priced by fiber type, subject to a $200 minimum service charge. Fiber identification comes first because wool, silk, cotton and synthetic each require completely different handling, and the wrong method causes permanent damage.
Extras, priced
the same for everyone.
▸ ADD-ONS ARE ON TOP OF BASE RATES · $200 MINIMUM SERVICE CHARGE
Every job gets pre-vacuumed. The only question is who does it.
Dry soil has to come out before any moisture goes down. Once water hits loose grit it becomes mud in the pile, and no amount of extraction fully recovers it. This step is not optional on any job we run — skipping it is how cheap operators make carpet look worse a week later.
PRE-VACUUM INCLUDED IF YOU DO IT · $25 PER ROOM IF WE DOWhy we will not move your furniture back onto wet carpet.
This is the single most common callback in this trade, and it is entirely avoidable. When a company moves furniture, cleans underneath, and sets it back down on damp carpet, that carpet cannot dry. Foam blocks and plastic tabs do not create enough airflow to fix it — they lift the legs, not the furniture. What follows is mildew, and sometimes mold, trapped under the piece where nobody looks until it smells.
WE CLEAN AROUND FURNITURE · MOVING IT BACK ONTO WET CARPET CAUSES MILDEWWhat actually matters
An area rug is not carpet you can pick up. Carpet is attached, backed and almost always synthetic. An area rug may be wool, silk, cotton, viscose or synthetic, hand-knotted or machine-made, and dyed with anything from stable modern dyes to vegetable dyes that will bleed the moment they get wet.
Wool is the one people damage most. It is alkaline-sensitive — high-pH cleaners strip its natural lanolin and leave it harsh, brittle and permanently dulled. Wool also holds enormous amounts of dry soil, often several pounds in a room-sized rug, which is why thorough dry soil removal before any moisture is the most important step.
Viscose, sometimes sold as art silk or bamboo silk, is the material that catches people out. It looks like silk and costs a fraction of it, and it turns yellow and loses its texture with plain water. If we identify viscose we will tell you honestly what can and cannot be achieved.
Dye bleed is the risk on anything hand-made or older. We test every color in an inconspicuous area before the rug gets wet. That test takes a few minutes and prevents the one mistake that cannot be undone.
How we do it.
Same four phases, every job.
Inspect
We walk the job with you before anything gets wet. Fiber identification matters more than most people realize — a burn test or a close look at the pile tells us whether we are dealing with nylon, polyester, olefin or wool, and each one takes a different chemistry. We find the traffic lanes, the filtration lines along baseboards, the spots you have already tried to treat, and we tell you honestly which ones will come out and which ones will not. A stain that has been sitting in a jute backing for two years is a different conversation than last week’s coffee, and you deserve to hear that before we start rather than after.
Pre-treat
Pre-spray goes down matched to what we found in the inspection, and then it sits. Dwell time is the step cheap jobs skip because it looks like nothing is happening, and it is the step that does most of the work. Chemistry needs contact time to break the bond between soil and fiber. Spray and immediately extract and you are just rinsing the surface. On heavy traffic lanes we agitate with a groomer to drive solution down to the base of the pile where the soil actually lives.
Clean
The machine stays in the truck. That is not a detail — a truck-mount produces heat and vacuum that no portable unit can approach, and vacuum is what determines whether soil leaves the building or settles back into the fiber as it dries. We work in overlapping passes with dry strokes between wet ones. Hot water extraction is the method the Carpet and Rug Institute and most major carpet manufacturers publish, and for most carpet it is the method required to keep the warranty valid.
Protect
We groom the pile so it dries standing up instead of matted flat, set up airflow, and apply protector where it makes sense for the fiber. Then we walk it with you and tell you the truth about the next twenty-four hours — what will look different when it dries, what might wick back and need a second pass, and how long to stay off it. Most callbacks in this trade are not cleaning failures. They are expectation failures.
Area Rug Cleaning questions
we actually get asked.
From $2 per square foot, $2.50 with enzyme treatment, $3 with Scotchgard. Final pricing depends on fiber type and condition.
Because it changes the method. Wool needs pH-controlled chemistry and careful drying. Silk and viscose need extremely low moisture. Synthetics tolerate far more. The material determines the work.
Yes, with wool-safe chemistry. Wool is alkaline-sensitive — high-pH cleaners strip its lanolin and leave it permanently harsh and dull. Dry soil removal before any moisture is the critical step most people skip.
Fringe is usually cotton even on a wool rug, so it soils faster and yellows differently. It is cleaned separately with different chemistry. Fringe that is already damaged or unraveling we will flag rather than make worse.
We test every color before the rug gets wet. Hand-made and older rugs are the risk, particularly with vegetable dyes. That test takes minutes and prevents the one mistake that cannot be reversed.
Area Rug Cleaning across
six cities.
Ready when you are.
One call. Cleanest floors you've had.
GALT (916) 919-7642 · LODI (209) 663-0823 · MON–SAT · 9AM–5PM
$200 MINIMUM SERVICE CHARGE · WE DO NOT MOVE FURNITURE · PRE-VACUUM REQUIRED