There are 2 types of soil a rug can hold. Dry soil and Soluble Soil. Whats the difference? Thats a very attractive question. This article will explain… kind of.

Dry Soil: dry soil is the kind of stuff that typically comes out with a vacuum. Dust, dander, sand.. things like this. Its in every rug and it allows the rug to do its job… Capture dry soil.

Rugs (and carpeting) have long been used (literally thousands of years) to trap dry-particulate soil and prevent it from becoming part of the air. With out this flooring, dry soil is easily stirred up, airborne and breathable (super gross). While normal vacuuming is essential to the longevity of your rug, it doesn’t always get the deeper embedded soils. You know the stuff that likes to hang out in the foundation, the “back of the bus” troubled kind of soils.

So, how do you get it out? Thats an even more better question. Theres good news and bad news: The bad news is… you don’t. The good news is WE do and, that is done through multiple different methods.

1. Rug Beater: a rug beater is used on the reverse side of the rug (the back) and has straps that spin very fast to literally beat out the dry soil. It is similar to Aunt Sherry using a broom and hitting the back of the rug really hard to shake loose the dirt. Except this is a machine and it hits the rug dozens of times per minute, probably harder than Aunt Sherry did with the broom.
2. Air Dusting: air dusting is a newer technique that uses compressed air through a hose and a special tool, which forces the air into the face of the rug, pushing the dirt out. Kind of like the leaf blower blows the leaves away, except with a lot more force to really get down into the rug.
3. Tumble Duster: this works with very little effort by a person and almost exclusively by a machine. This machine is a large barrel that spins the same fashion as a bicycle tire. This large barrel has the rug put inside and starts to spin like the clothes dryer. Every rotation allows the rug to fall back to the bottom of the duster, in a tumbling fashion, and the weight of the rug “knocks” the dirt out. It does this over, and over, and over , and over (it’s really a lot of overs), until all the dry dirt is out of the rug.

Why is it important remove?

The answer is very simple. Dry soil makes wet soil. So, more wet soil makes the rug harder to clean, and takes longer to clean. The bigger problem with dry soil becoming wet soil is that dry soil bonds with the fibers when it gets wet, making it difficult to impossible to clean out. 

Think about going in the back yard, filling your pocket with dirt, rubbing it around and then trying to wash all of that out from the outside of your pants.