Hoover Platinum Carpet Cleaner Cleaning Project

This weekend, a friend of mine was out of town with his wife and 2 kids. I offered to clean his carpet if he just paid me for the 2 gallons of detergent, so he said deal! Keep in mind, they both work full time, had 2 dogs, just 1 now, and a cat. I wouldn't have time to clean carpets if I had 2 kids that's for sure! So I offered to help him out by letting me use my new Hoover Platinum Carpet Cleaner. The carpet is about 4 years old, and has seen heavy traffic from 2 large dogs and normal family/friends over.

I spent about 8 hours total, first vacuuming with my Sanitaire SC678 which I upgraded to the VibraGroomer II. They have a Dyson DC07 Animal I believe, which does a great job of surface cleaning, but we all know how they don't do well at deep cleaning on thick American carpet. I knew that I'd need something with an aggressive brushroll to get a lot of the deep down grit out of the rugs. To give you an idea of how much deep down grit there was, the ENTIRE time I was vacuuming (3 hours solid), it was constant clattering and pinging of small pebbles / sand through the Sanitaire. This was music to my ears! :-) I started with a new ST style bag on the Sanitaire, and it was about 2/3 full of solid dirt/sand/grit, and some pethair / carpet fluff. The bag probably weighed over 6 lbs when I picked it up. The stairs entering in from the garage was the worst as you can expect, this is where all the dirt is first tracked in. I spent a good 45 minutes on the stairs alone, and finally had to move on to the rest of the house. I couldn't get all of the dirt out of the stairs, or I'd still be there. Amazing how much dirt a carpet can trap.

In the photo with the trash bag, that is all of the fluff and hair that vacuuming session left behind, which was dumped from the dirty water tank of the Hoover.

There was only 1 spot which I was not able to get out, and that was due to it being Tar stuck on a couple of carpet threads. I'll leave that for him to decide if he wants to snip them out or some goo-gone.

I just used 2 gallons of the regular Hoover Deep Clensing forumla, as the cost of the Platinum detergent would have been about $100! Very expensive detergent, and I think this deep clensing formula does just fine. You get 128 ounces (1 gallon) for about $17.98, vs the Platinum detergent, only 50 ounces, for $20. Outrageously expensive if you ask me. I personally think the deep clensing smells way better than the Platinum detergent anyway. I think they need to drop the price and offer the same Platinum detergent in gallon sizes as well.

Hope you all enjoy the before/after photos. I just ask that everyone please keep comments nice, this is one of my best friends here in Omaha. They are very clean people, just when you have 2 kids to raise, when you have time to rest, the last thing you'd want to do is clean carpets!!!

Enjoy!


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Post# 77157 8/2/2009 at 13:38 (5,374 days old) by vacfanatic (Omaha, NE)
Checkrate/Likes This weekend, a friend of mine was out of town with his wife and 2 kids. I offered to clean his carpet if he just paid me for the 2 gallons of detergent, so he said deal! Keep in mind, they both work full time, had 2 dogs, just 1 now, and a cat. I wouldn't have time to clean carpets if I had 2 kids that's for sure! So I offered to help him out by letting me use my new Hoover Platinum Carpet Cleaner. The carpet is about 4 years old, and has seen heavy traffic from 2 large dogs and normal family/friends over. I spent about 8 hours total, first vacuuming with my Sanitaire SC678 which I upgraded to the VibraGroomer II. They have a Dyson DC07 Animal I believe, which does a great job of surface cleaning, but we all know how they don't do well at deep cleaning on thick American carpet. I knew that I'd need something with an aggressive brushroll to get a lot of the deep down grit out of the rugs. To give you an idea of how much deep down grit there was, the ENTIRE time I was vacuuming (3 hours solid), it was constant clattering and pinging of small pebbles / sand through the Sanitaire. This was music to my ears! :-) I started with a new ST style bag on the Sanitaire, and it was about 2/3 full of solid dirt/sand/grit, and some pethair / carpet fluff. The bag probably weighed over 6 lbs when I picked it up. The stairs entering in from the garage was the worst as you can expect, this is where all the dirt is first tracked in. I spent a good 45 minutes on the stairs alone, and finally had to move on to the rest of the house. I couldn't get all of the dirt out of the stairs, or I'd still be there. Amazing how much dirt a carpet can trap. In the photo with the trash bag, that is all of the fluff and hair that vacuuming session left behind, which was dumped from the dirty water tank of the Hoover. There was only 1 spot which I was not able to get out, and that was due to it being Tar stuck on a couple of carpet threads. I'll leave that for him to decide if he wants to snip them out or some goo-gone. I just used 2 gallons of the regular Hoover Deep Clensing forumla, as the cost of the Platinum detergent would have been about $100! Very expensive detergent, and I think this deep clensing formula does just fine. You get 128 ounces (1 gallon) for about $17.98, vs the Platinum detergent, only 50 ounces, for $20. Outrageously expensive if you ask me. I personally think the deep clensing smells way better than the Platinum detergent anyway. I think they need to drop the price and offer the same Platinum detergent in gallon sizes as well. Hope you all enjoy the before/after photos. I just ask that everyone please keep comments nice, this is one of my best friends here in Omaha. They are very clean people, just when you have 2 kids to raise, when you have time to rest, the last thing you'd want to do is clean carpets!!! Enjoy!

Post# 77162 , Reply# 1 8/2/2009 at 13:58 (5,374 days old) by luxg ()
Checkrate/Likes *Wow Great Job!!* Andrew, the after results look fantastic!! I am sure that your friends are going to be very pleased!! I've always heard that the secret to keeping carpet clean and looking new is to clean it before it looks dirty!!

Post# 77163 , Reply# 2 8/2/2009 at 14:00 (5,374 days old) by vintagehoover ()
Checkrate/Likes Wow! You can't argue with results!! I'm sure your friends will think they've got the wrong house when they return :) Great job!

Post# 77164 , Reply# 3 8/2/2009 at 14:11 (5,374 days old) by bagintheback (Flagstaff, Arizona)
Checkrate/Likes Good job on the carpet. I've had an experience with that most grit in a carpet too. My grandparents had a TurboPower Hoover Caddyvac for 10 years. That carpet had not seen a good brushroll for ten years!(Before they had a Eureka with a vibra-groomer)So they got a Hoover Convertible, and I vacuumed their whole house, which is pretty small, and I had to spent about 2 hours vacuuming their front room because it use full of grit. The A bag ended up full after that!

Post# 77171 , Reply# 4 8/2/2009 at 15:17 (5,374 days old) by xraytech ()
Checkrate/Likes Andrew, The results look great, I am sure all your hard work is very appreciated. I cant wait until I can get the Steam Vac Platinum

Post# 77173 , Reply# 5 8/2/2009 at 15:26 (5,374 days old) by riccarlover ()
Checkrate/Likes *Andrew...* I think you cheated and took the easy route and just replaced the carpet!!! ;) WONDERFUL results!!! Honestly though, carpets over yonder here are that dirty too!!! I can do our rugs here and I vacuum several times a week and still it amazes me what I get out with my Hoover. I think I might back-stab Hoover and go buy a Bissell for my grandma's because I'm sick of dragging the Hoover back and forth all the time. I haven't decieded yet though. The only two complaints I have about my Dual V is 1. the noise and 2. it leaves my berber fuzzy. Again, WONDERFUL on the carpet!!! Clayton :)

Post# 77196 , Reply# 6 8/2/2009 at 19:27 (5,374 days old) by samotronic ()
Checkrate/Likes *Amazing* Andrew Hoover should hire you for their Marketing department. I also had great results with this machine this week, but my carpet is less than a year old and it is vacuumed a couple times a week with a Kirby Diamond. It has also been cleaned with a Hoover Agility. Despite that I was shocked at the black filth in the recovery tank (though not quite like this). I also had great luck with the tools on my stairs. Great to know that the standard Hoover detergent works. I wondered as well and also thought that the smell of the Platinum detergent is not as nice. Chris

Post# 77220 , Reply# 7 8/3/2009 at 09:03 (5,373 days old) by ibaisaic ()
Checkrate/Likes I bet your friends were over the moon at their clean carpets. Perhaps they will get a Platinum Carpet Cleaner themselves after seeing what it can do, but then, with a friend who is kind enough to do all the work, why would they. I bet you enjoyed every minute. I shampoo my carpets about every twelve weeks with a Vax Dual V (similar to the Hoover model) so apart from the living room, the water doesn't get very dirty. It's great fun when you take your machine to another house whose owners don't have a carpet cleaner and marvel at the filth that comes out. I save a glassfull of the water to show people the colour of the water, not to point out their shortcomings as homeowners, but to demonstrate how good the machine is. I suppose a lot of us really enjoy vacuuming and shampooing, which is something that many people wouldn't understand. I am so hoping that Vax in the UK will launch the Platinum series here, because I would love to own your carpet cleaner. Failing that, I will have to dig deep and import one from the States and use a step down transformer.

Post# 77232 , Reply# 8 8/3/2009 at 16:59 (5,373 days old) by seamusuk (Dover Kent UK)
Checkrate/Likes *Nice Job :)* Hey Andrew Well you defiantly gave the new toy a good workout- the results look amazing im sure your friend will be very impressed!. Regarding the detergent the Platinium version sounds outrageously expensive compared with the standard version. Ive added a couple of links to the options Vax have over here-I intend to use the AAA in standard or spring clean, although Jack did leave me a Ultra to try as well :). Hopefully my delayed All Terain will arrive tomorrow.DHL allegedly attempted delivery on Friday but im not convinced..... Seamus

Post# 77233 , Reply# 9 8/3/2009 at 17:04 (5,373 days old) by seamusuk (Dover Kent UK)
Checkrate/Likes *Forgot the link..* Vax solution range :) CLICK HERE TO GO TO seamusuk's LINK

Post# 77234 , Reply# 10 8/3/2009 at 19:26 (5,373 days old) by riccarlover ()
Checkrate/Likes *Well I think I'm going to try something new...* I've decieded that my grandma's living room carpet needs a good cleaning. I did do the carpet last spring with the Hoover and I did it this winter with the Kirby shampooer. I'm going to try doing it without solution and see the results. I will post them. Clayton :)