the process of proper carpet cleaning can be compared to the proper process of brushing your teeth. It is impossible to get a proper cleaning with mouth rinse alone or simply by swishing water in your mouth, your teeth need to be brushed, and so does your carpet. What the brush does that the steam cannot achieve is agitation. thats what helps to loosen the plaque on your teeth and thats what helps to loosen the dirt on your carpet. Just as there is flossing for the real stubborn stuck dirt on your teeth there are methods we in the carpet cleaning industry use to clean specific stains in your carpet.
There are many types of scrub brushes and machines out there, and there are many reasons why a carpet cleaning company would choose to use one or another. some of the most common are counter rotating single bonnets and or brushes, cybex triple brush machines and CRB counter rotating brush. a bonnet scrub system will do general scrubbing. the way it works is that there is a looped fabric with agitating strips. The looped fabric absorbs the dirt while the strips work the dirt out of the carpet. this is good for most general scrubbing however it does not get deep into most thick carpets. brushes will get deeper into carpet but will not remove the dirt from the carpet. i have found that brushes work magic on pet hair especially scrubbing the hair in to big clumps that can easily be vacuumed up after the scrubbing process. cybex machines and single brush scrubbers will scrub in a very similar manor. The CRB machines scrub the carpet upwards which pulls the dirt away from the carpet and dispense the dirt in trays off to the side of the machine. these machines unique method of scrubbing that has been approved by the largest manufactures of carpet. It is not always necessary that your carpet be scrubbed if your carpet is brand new or has been treated and maintained with utmost care a steam only cleaning may be exactly what you need. if your are however like the rest of us you need scrubbing with your steam cleaning.