Has anyone rented a carpet cleaner from a supermarket?

[AiryFairyMum]

My PIL have bought a property with fairly dirty - but lovely - carpets. We'd like to give them a good clean, but I don't know whether to hire a carpet cleaner from the supermarket or to buy one they can reuse. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations please?

Yes we’ve used a Rug Doctor from a supermarket, it was very good.

We’ve used the supermarket ones. They’re really good

Rug Foctor from the supermarket was much better than the cleaner I bought for my dad's house.

rug doctors were good but get the big one or you'll spend twice as long doing it.
I have just paid to get mine done by a company though and for the extra £20 quid saved a lot of work and hassle

We rent rug doctors from our store. Never used one but everyone says they are great, easy to use and efficient

Get a professional carpet cleaner in check their w member of NACC their machines will be more powerful up north it's only a about £30 a room ish

You lot are brilliant, thank you!

Evening,

As the username might suggest, mine won't be an impartial view, but one informed by years of carpet cleaning.

In general, most professional carpet cleaners will rightly point out that most brands of hire machines are unlikely to achieve a good result. This is because of the following reasons:

1. Usually, they are sold with detergent solutions, but lack the rinse pressure to sufficiently remove soils that have become emulsified by the detergent.

1. The residual detergent will remain in the carpet & form a residue that will significantly accelerate 'resoiling'.

1. The vacuum power of rental machines will usually mean extended drying times, particularly at this time of year. This not only means damp carpets, but further time for any bacteria that has been activated through a tepid cleaning process to cause odours.

This is not to say you can't do an okay job yourself. Sometimes, you can. It's just that the odds are stacked against this.

I would suggest getting some quotations in and doing a realistic projection of the energy & time likely to be expended by doing it yourself.

The benefits of a professional are:

Our experience
Our access to & familiarity with a vast range of far superior solutions/spotters etc, many if which are eco-friendly
It is hard work (!)
We will introduce an agitation process into the mix to significantly improve the result
A professional machine will not only clean deeper, but will reduce drying time.

Apologies for the partisan perspective, hopefully it's in some way useful.

Those are great tips. They have had quotes from a company, but on further inspection their carpets were very old wool and the professional cleaner said their process might shrink them so they advised renting a cleaner. I'm aware of the risks of cleaning them ourselves, but unfortunately it's either clean them or get rid of them, and we'd rather try cleaning first.

I was looking at Rug Doctors in ASDA just this morning. I didn't have my credit card with me so couldn't do it today but will be doing so asap. My sister has used them and raved about how much better her carpets looked and smelled afterwards (she'd just moved in and it looked like a crack afficionado was the previous resident until she cleaned the carpets and repainted everywhere, she'd been convinced she'd need all new carpets but changed her mind after the cleaning worked so well).

The Rug Doctor worked really well for me but it's really awkward to use.

I thought I had replied on this thread a little while ago but realised it is a new one.

I have only hired from HSS and they were crap machines. Leaked all over the carpet in one case, and left it very wet.

We bought a George (Henry's wet & dry cousin) he is much better.
Had Vax ones, and not as good as George.