One of the most common complaints with tiled floors is discolouration of the grout between the tiles – meaning the floors never look clean. Grout is a porous substance and easily absorbs grease, dirt and limescale. Spillages such as wine, soft drinks and grease will result in unsightly blemishes. Mould and mildew can also affect the colouring of grout.

The colour of your grouting can affect the look of your tiled surface, even if you don’t realise it. Plain white grout will always look fresh and summery regardless of the colour of your tiles. However dirt and grime absorbed into white grout will be much more visible than darker colours, and so it’s important to get your grouting regularly cleaned.

The process of recolouring grout involves removing all the existing stains and blemishes from the grouting and bleaching out the existing colour before reinjecting new colour back in. After thoroughly cleaning the tiled floor area with a bleach solution and waiting for the grout to dry completely, new colour is reinjected back into the existing grouting. This gives a consistent appearance to the grout and, if done correctly and with an epoxy colourant, will seal the grout to prevent future staining.

Recolouring your grout can add life back into your tiled floors and can leave your floors looking much fresher than even the most thorough of cleans.

There are a number of ways to clean carpets, including dry cleaning and steam cleaning, as well as encapsulation and steam cleaning.  Here at Steamy’s we believe in the merits of steam cleaning (as you may be able to tell by our name). However, we are constantly trying to fight off the common myth that steam cleaning is an inconvenience, as leaves your carpets wet for days after cleaning and unable to walk on.

In fact, steam cleaning provides a much deeper and thorough clean to carpets. After removing all the surface dirt with a dry vacuum and ensuring all the soil is brought to the surface with a rotary brush, steam cleaning involves injecting a hot water/detergent solution into the carpet under pressure. Injecting this solution suspends the soil in the carpet. A web vacuum simultaneously removes the soil and any excess moisture. The carpet may be slightly damp upon completion of a steam cleaning job, but this will dry within a few hours and will ensure a much deeper and more thorough clean than dry cleaning.

While it is true that a technician who is unskilled in steam cleaning may leave your carpet completely wet after a clean, an unskilled technician would complete any job improperly – not just steam cleaning. It is important to remember that you always need to use skilled technicians to clean your carpets.  Here at Steamy’s, all our technicians are trained with nationally and internationally certifications and qualifications and are experts in steam cleaning.

Rugs require special care to maximise their life and durability. There are a number of things you can do at home to make your rug last longer, such as vacuuming regularly to remove loose soil and avoiding continual direct exposure to sunlight. However, one of the best ways to maximise the lifespan of your rug is to get it professionally cleaned every 2 to 4 years.

As a child I can remember my mother hanging our family oriental rug on the balcony and beating it heavily with a broom. The soil would fall off leaving the carpet a little cleaner; however these days we have much more efficient and advanced methods of cleaning rugs.

The rug needs to be taken away from the premises (offsite) so that the rug can be cleaned properly. The first step is to beat the soil out with a special machine. The soil that detaches away from the rug is usually colourful due to the soil eating through the pile.

Once the soil has been removed, the rug is then steam cleaned using the correct kind of detergent and amount of water specific to the type of rug, thus ensuring no running of colour or any other damage is caused to the rug. If not done correctly this can be a very costly exercise for all concerned.

I’m currently getting myself prepped up for a big rug job that we’ll be starting on soon. The rug is wool oriental and over 50 years old, meaning that it’s a very big job and one that we’re going to have to take a lot of care with.

Rug cleaning jobs always include a high trust factor. Rugs are very expensive and, for some people, can often hold a degree of sentimental value. It’s always in the back of my mind when I’m cleaning a rug that the customer has placed a high value item in my care, and it’s my duty to make sure that it returns to them in the best condition possible.

Unfortunately, pipe bursts in the chilly winter weather are not an uncommon occurrence. Water in pipes can often freeze and expand, which places extreme pressure on the inner wall of the pipes, causing the pipes to expand or explode.

If a pipe bursts in your house, you need to act quickly. Water damage to carpets, upholstery and contents can be extensive and the best way to restore it is to make sure you minimise the damage in the first place.

If your pipes burst, you should immediately turn off the stop tap to stop water flowing through your pipes to remove the cause of the flood. There is no point in calling a restorer out to help you if the water is still running. After you have stopped the flow, you need to contact your water damage restorer to come out and evaluate the damage as soon as possible. Flood damage to carpets, upholstery and contents can be much more extensive than most people believe (if not dried out properly, water damage can even lead to mould growth – which is a lot more expensive to fix than the original water damage!)

While you are waiting for a restorer to get to the site, you should block the escaping water with a towel, open all the taps in your house to reduce flooding and the pressure on the system, Turn off the source of heat for the hot water and central heating to avoid electrical problems and call your plumber to come out and assess the pipe burst.

There are a number of ways that you can avoid your pipes bursting. Make sure to repair all dripping taps and faulty valves which drip, as these can often allow waste pipes to freeze. Keep your house warm and stop draughts into your house during winter to keep the pipe work warm. Most importantly, make sure your stop tap works, so that in the event of a burst you can turn off the water. If you don’t have one, get one fitted!