The Rug Doctor is obviously a popular piece of equipment for rug cleaning DIY’ers and those wanting to save a bit of money over professional carpet cleaning services. Does the Rug Doctor work? Yes, it absolutely does! The problems with the Rug Doctor surface when the people who rent it either have a poor understanding of the machine or limited experience with cleaning carpets all together which often leads to a poorer than expected result after they are finished.
Today, I am going to explain the proper way to set up a rug doctor so the next time you get one home, you will walk away completely satisfied with the job it does on your carpets. Let’s get started!
1. When you get the Rug Doctor Home, unlock the handle and swing it out and up into the upright position. There are 4 to choose from. Choose whichever one seems like it will be the most comfortable for an extended day of cleaning (we are speaking of ergonomics here!)
2. When operating, the 2 needle jets on the bottom of the machine deliver a measured amount of cleaner through the nozzles and onto the rug. The row of bi-directional brushes operate at 3200 cycles per minute allowing every side and angle of the carpet fiber to get scrubbed. A vacuum extracts 80% of the cleaning solution from the carpet right after use. The Rug Doctor is fairly bulky, therefore you will need to remove all of the furniture from the room before starting the machine.
3. Give the carpet a thorough vacuuming to remove and surface dirt and debris. This will allow the deep cleaning of the Rug Doctor to be more effective.
4. To add the Rug Doctor cleaning solution to the machine, fill a bucket with approximately 8 liters of warm tap water. Shake the Rug Doctor solution thoroughly and then add 150 ml to the bucket of warm water. This will be enough solution to clean one full sized room.
5. On the Rug Doctor, there are 2 compartments for fluids, one at the bottom (this is the compartment to put the clean solution) and the upper tank, which is where the cleaner goes after it is used and sucked back up by the machine. In order to reach the red base tank to fill it with clean solution, you will need to remove the upper recovery tank.
To remove the recovery tank, simply un-clip the retaining handle from the top of the unit, and fold it down and out of the way. Once un-clipped, the recovery tank will lift easily out of the way giving access to the lower tank. Now, you can pour your bucket of clean solution into the lower tank. Once your solution is in the lower tank, replace the recovery tank and re-clip the handle to hold the components in place.
6. The last step needed for your Rug Doctor setup is to look on the top of the machine. That is where you will find a white rocker switch. One setting on the switch is for ‘hand tool’. The other side of the switch is for ‘carpet cleaning’. Make sure the switch is set to ‘carpet cleaning’ in order to commence the job.
If the switch is set to ‘hand tool’ it will spray a continuous steam of cleaning solution onto the carpet soaking it far too much (as well as getting your carpets far too wet) to be cleaned properly. Just make sure before you start cleaning to have that switch set properly.
That concludes the simple steps needed to be taken in order to set up your Rug Doctor for proper carpet cleaning. Later, I will be examining the proper steps to take to do the cleaning itself. Stay tuned!