Oriental Rugs: The Importance of Proper Care

Our rug cleaning crew our supporting Austin Pets Alive.

Oriental rugs are beautiful, elegant additions to your home, but investing in such delicate, handmade artistry means you’ll need to take extra caution while caring for them! But don’t worry- if the task is ever too daunting (or too inconvenient) The Steam Team is always standing by, ready to help. In the meantime, here are a few helpful guidelines to caring for oriental rugs: 

Preventing Wear & Tear

Keep an eye on your pets, especially cats and puppies, who might try to scratch or chew on the rug. Give your pets fun alternatives, like a scratching post or a durable chew toy, and make sure their exercise and activity needs are met, to avoid destructive behavior. If one of your pets has an accident on the rug, take the rug to a professional cleaner. 

If you would like to use a rug pad for extra protection, try to find one made of polyester. Avoid rubber pads, which can become gummy over time and stick to the flooring underneath. 

Take your shoes off before walking on the rug, or get in the habit of leaving your street shoes at the door and wearing only dedicated house slippers. 

Rotate the rug 180 degrees once every few months or so. This is to ensure even fading from natural light. If the rug is in a spot that gets direct sunlight, try to minimize UV damage by installing curtains or blinds. 

Cleaning 

Vacuum regularly with the nozzle attachment. Avoid using any brush attachments or rollers on the rug, which can damage the fibers. Occasionally vacuum the back of the rug, too.   

In the event of a spill, blot—don’t scrub—with a white paper towel or cloth. If it’s a stain that water alone can’t remove, take your rug to a professional rug cleaner. 

Call the Professionals

And finally, it’s important to have your rug professionally cleaned every few years, to remove built-up dust, grime, and staining! Give The Steam Team a call today. You won’t be disappointed in our results!

How The Steam Team Handles Pesky Pet Odors

Professional Carpet Cleaners

We love our pets, but sometimes they can become a drain on our finances, especially if they aren’t properly potty trained and they leave urine stains on the carpet or furniture. You might be spending lots of money over and over to buy products advertised to clean up the stains and eliminate the odor, or maybe you have to remove the furniture from your home entirely to get rid of the odor. Here at The Steam Team, we have another solution. Our professional technicians will eliminate the stain and the odor, and you won’t have to get rid of your carpet or furniture.

Eliminating Stains and Odor Treatment

First and foremost, when it comes to eliminating stains, it's important to do so as soon as possible, while the stain is still fresh. If you wait, it will become much harder to eliminate the stain and the odor that comes with it. But if you can’t take care of it quick enough, our technicians will help

When our technicians arrive at your home, they’ll start by inspecting the carpet or furniture to find the stained and odor-filled areas and determine the best method. We have several different solutions for different kinds of stains and odors on different materials, so we’ll be able to fix your pet odor problem no matter where it is. In extreme cases when it comes to carpet, the carpet, padding and even subfloor may need to be removed to eliminate the odor.

Our Professional Method

Here’s our complete, professional stain and odor removal method at The Steam Team:

(Depending on the situation, some steps may be left out)

• Pulling up the carpet.

• Removing the stained padding.

• Cleaning the back of the carpet.

• Using specialized enzyme treatment on the floor.

• Using an odor barrier to seal the floor.

• Applying enzyme treatment to the back of the carpet.

• Installing new tack strip.

• Installing new padding.

• Re-installing carpet.

• Completely cleaning carpet.

• Topically apply enzyme treatment.

For more information, please visit The Steam Team website.

Natural Stone Cleaning 101: All You Need to Know

marble cleaning Austin, Texas

Natural stone is an absolutely gorgeous addition to any home. Whether it covers your floors, counters, or even your walls- natural stone brings a certain aesthetic to a home. With any flooring, obviously, comes maintenance- and with natural stone, the cleaning is a little different than you might think for other flooring. Here at The Steam Team, our expert technicians are armed with the best equipment and ready to help you clean your home. On today’s blog, we’re going over how best to clean that natural stone (no matter where it is).

Simple Cleaning

First, let’s start by performing a few simple cleaning tasks! This includes sweeping and some light mopping. If you’re using a vacuum instead of a broom, just make sure you’re not using one with cracked or broken wheels that could damage your flooring. You can mop with your trust cleaning solution and a bucket of warm water (as long as the solution has been approved for natural stone flooring). That’s easy enough, right?

Intermediate Cleaning

When we talk about intermediate cleaning, we mean stain removal, or grout cleaning! All too often our grout is neglected, or those stains are just left to stick. When it comes to stain removal, the number one thing you must remember is that your cleaning solution must be meant for natural stone. 

Deep Cleaning

When it comes time to deep clean your natural stone flooring, it’s best to call in the professionals. A professional cleaning and restoration company like The Steam Team will have all of the right tools and equipment for the job! You won’t have to worry about potentially damaging your natural stone flooring because it’ll be in expert hands! 

Don’t hesitate; give The Steam Team a phone call today and you won’t regret making the leap! We can do wonders to your natural stone flooring or surfaces. We’ll come out, inspect your home, and restore them to their original condition. You can trust us to do the job correctly the first time! 

What's Your Plan For Fire Damage Restoration?

24 Hour Emergency Water Damage Service

In case of life-threatening emergencies like severe storms or fire damage, you and your family likely have a plan for what to do to keep yourselves safe. But have you ever thought of what you would do after a severe fire has occurred in your home? It’s important to plan for the aftermath as well as the fire itself. Who’s going to clean up the damage, restore your home and salvage your belongings?

Should You Do It Yourself?

If you’re considering the option of cleaning up a fire-damaged property by yourself, consider these factors first:

• After a severe fire has occurred, walls and pillars may be unstable, and by entering the property you could risk the structure collapsing on top of you.

• Chemicals from common household cleaners, soaps and other items may have burned in the fire, creating a toxic atmosphere that may cause you to faint or may even be lethal.

• To properly clean up a fire damaged property, you would need the right equipment such as tarps, safety attire, industrial strength water pumps, a press extractor and much more.

Given these reasons, you should see that it’s a huge risk to enter a fire-damaged property, and you should leave the work up to the trained professionals.

Professional Fire Damage Restoration

When looking for a trained team of professionals who can safely clean and restore your property after a disastrous fire, keep The Steam Team in mind. Our technicians will inspect your home or business and give you a full estimate of costs and walk you through the process before they tarp up, clean and restore your property.

Safety Advice From The Pros

After the full cleaning and restoration process is complete, our Steam Team professionals will consult you on how to better prepare your home to withstand fire disasters in the future. For more information on fire damage restoration, as well as our many other services, please visit The Steam Team website.

Let's Compare: Steam Cleaning Versus Other Cleaning Methods

We were voted best cleaning company in Austin by The Austin American Statesman in 2020

As of late, steam cleaners have been on the rise as the preferred cleaning method of many home and business owners around the world. But what exactly is it that makes steam cleaning so desirable when compared to other, more common cleaning methods? Let’s discuss the differences between steam cleaning and other methods so you can decide for yourself which is best.

Vacuum Or Steam Clean?

One of the most common cleaning practices for floors, especially carpets, is vacuuming. Many people vacuum every few days or every week, and sometimes not even that often. But is this achieving the kind of clean that many homeowners think it does? Not quite. Most vacuum cleaners are only able to get a fraction of dirt and debris out of carpets, and dust mites that thrive at the lowest parts of the carpet are almost never reached by vacuum cleaning alone. For a full, deep clean of your carpet there’s no better method than the high-pressure steam of a steam cleaner!

Saving Money and Saving The Home

While the cost of having professionals steam clean your home or buying a steam cleaner yourself may seem like a lot, you’ll actually be saving quite a bit of money in the long run when you consider the repeated costs of buying detergents and other home-cleaning products. And you’ll see that the money was well spent when you realize how much better a steam cleaner is for your home. Since steam cleaners use only water and heat, they won’t have the potentially harmful effects of some harsh chemicals commonly used for cleaning. 

The Steam Team

Now that you’ve seen the benefits that steam cleaning can offer, you can make the choice of getting a costly steam cleaner for yourself, or paying professionals from The Steam Team to use high-powered steam cleaners and other professional cleaning methods to quickly make your home sparkle again! For more information on how we can help, please visit The Steam Team website.

Battling Bacteria During Flu Season

Professional Carpet Cleaning Services in Austin, Texas Since 1983

It’s that time of year again; cold and flu season! The temperatures have dropped, germs are spreading, and we’re all fighting yet another season of bacteria. On today’s blog, we’re talking about how you can keep the bacteria at bay during these months. We’re fortunate enough to work with a cleaning method that tackles tough stains as well as it battles bacteria- we’d be crazy not to share its benefits with you! Let’s get started:

Carpet Cleaning VS Other Methods of Cleaning

To start, steam cleaning kills 99.9% of all germs and bacteria. With a professional grade steam cleaner, you’ll eradicate those pesky germs from your home, and hopefully everyone will stay perfectly healthy. And you can rest peacefully, knowing that you home is clean, clean, clean. 

But there are other advantages to professional carpet cleaning services, as well! For instance… 

It’s a Versatile Method of Cleaning

Steam cleaning is very versatile! You can steam clean virtually any surface and flooring in your home (as long as it’s not hardwood!). From countertops, to baseboards, to carpeting and more; The Steam Team can take care of it all! That’s what makes it such a versatile method of cleaning: we can essentially clean your home from top to bottom. 

It’s Safe For Your Home, Children, and Pets

Because steam cleaning uses nothing but high pressurized water and hot steam, it’s perfectly safe for the environment. You won’t have to worry about your pets licking off any residue from a cleaning product (or your children putting their fingers in their mouths after crawling around on the flooring). It’s perfectly safe! 

For more information, contact us at The Steam Team ASAP today for a thorough deep cleaning, or visit our website.