Professional Rug Cleaning in Greenville
Hand washing for Persian, Oriental, wool, silk and every other kind of area rug, with the method set by the rug's fiber, dyes and construction. Free pick-up & delivery included.
Why a rug is not carpet
Carpet is fixed to a floor and designed to be cleaned from above. A hand-knotted rug is a free-standing textile with a foundation, two finished ends and two wrapped edges, and all four of those are put at risk when it is treated like carpet. What usually goes wrong is dye that has traveled across the field, uneven shrinkage, or edges that will not lie flat again. Every rug coming into Greenville Rug Cleaning & Restoration is dye-tested and assessed before a method is settled on.
Assessment
Fiber, dye behavior, construction and any damage already present are recorded before the rug is committed to a method.
Dusting
Dry soil comes out mechanically, first. Nothing after this stage works properly if pounds of grit are still sitting down in the foundation.
Washing
The rug goes into water with solutions balanced to the fiber, and is worked by hand at whatever pressure the construction will take.
Rinsing
Flushed through the back until the water runs clear, so there is no residue left in the pile for soil to key into later.
Controlled drying
The stage the Upstate climate makes hardest, and the one worth the most time. Rugs dry flat under moving air instead of in ambient summer humidity, which is what keeps shrinkage, migrating dye and mildew in the foundation out of the result.
Last look
Pile laid, ends finished, edges checked, and the back gone over as closely as the front before the rug goes home.
Washing a Rug in Upstate Water and Upstate Air
Drying is the part of a wash that a humid climate decides for you. With 133 days a year at or above 75 percent relative humidity, and stretches of damp weather running as long as 26 days, a rug left to dry in ambient Greenville air in midsummer is a rug drying slowly — and slow is where odor comes from, not the wash itself.
That is also the reason a rug that was cleaned in the home so often smells worse a week later than it did before. Surface cleaning wets the pile and leaves the foundation damp in weather that will not take the moisture back out of it. A rug washed off the floor, rinsed properly and dried under moving air does not get the chance.
What we find in houses here
Almost 48 inches of rain a year reaches the ground in about 117 days, so entry rugs take concentrated grit and clay rather than steady dust. Over a vented crawlspace — which is most of the older stock, from Augusta Road to Cleveland Forest — the underside of a rug can hold ground moisture even when the room feels dry. It is worth lifting a corner of a heavy rug once a season and looking at the back.
Traditions we wash
Open any of these for how that particular construction changes what happens in the water.
Matched to the fiber
Wool, silk, cotton and synthetics each get a solution balanced for them, rather than one product used across everything that comes through the door.
Collection runs anywhere we cover in Greenville and the Upstate — free for rugs 8×10 and larger, or for any pick-up with more than one rug in it.
Told beforehand, not afterwards
If a rug has a fault we cannot put right, or a dye that will not hold, you hear it at the assessment.
What decides how long it takes?
Size and construction set the washing time; the weather sets the drying time. A dense wool rug washed in a humid stretch stays on the drying floor longer than the same rug would in October, and shortening that is not worth doing.
Is there anything you will not take?
Very little. Wool, silk, cotton, synthetic, shag, flatweave and antique pieces are all handled, though a few get a modified method rather than full immersion.
Is collection really free?
Yes, for rugs 8×10 and larger, or for any pick-up carrying more than one rug, anywhere in our Upstate coverage.
Could washing shrink it?
Not where the drying is controlled. Shrinkage and fading come from heat, from drying that is left to chance, and from dyes nobody tested, which is why the dye test happens before the wash and the drying happens under moving air.
How often is sensible?
Every one to three years for a rug in regular use, sooner where there are pets or a door opening straight onto it. Over a vented crawlspace it is also worth lifting a corner each season and looking at the back in between washes.
Book a collection
Tell us what you have and we will come and get it. Pick-up and return are free across Greenville and the Upstate.
Common questions
Longer than a carpet cleaner would, and the drying is the reason. In air that sits at or above 75 percent humidity 133 days of the year, a rug put away before its foundation is properly dry will grow mildew somewhere nobody can see, so that stage takes as long as it takes. Any repair work is scheduled separately once we know how far it goes.
No. We agree a window with you, and leaving the rug somewhere reachable — a porch, a garage, inside a screen door — works perfectly well. Either way, the assessment and the cost reach you before anything is done to the rug.
It comes down to size, how the rug is built, and the condition it is in. We will not put a firm number on a hand-knotted rug nobody has seen, because that is guesswork with a confident voice. Looking at it costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Usually, though it turns on how long it sat there and how far down it soaked. Urine salts crystallize into the foundation and come back to life with humidity, which is exactly why a surface clean smells fine for a week and then does not — the salts have to be flushed out of the rug, not covered over. Where the saturation was heavy or repeated it can take the dye with it, and we would rather say that beforehand than afterwards.
That is the first thing tested, before any water reaches the rug. Certain older vegetable dyes and a number of early synthetic reds will move, and those rugs get washed cooler and faster — sometimes not by immersion at all.
Often yes, and the fragile ones are frequently the ones needing it most. Age by itself is not the issue; a foundation that has gone weak is. The structure is assessed first, and where a rug needs stabilizing before it can be washed we say so, rather than discover it halfway through.
No, and we would advise against letting anyone. Cleaned where it lies, a rug gets cleaned on one face while the other face just gets wet. The soil is at the bottom of the pile and it leaves through the back, so the rug has to come up off the floor, go into water, and dry under moving air.