Pre-Inspection and Fiber Identification

Purpose

Fiber and construction set the ceiling on every choice made later in the visit: solution temperature, pH band, agitation, moisture load and dry time. This procedure fixes those limits before anyone opens a jug, and writes them where the wand operator will read them. Skip it and the failures show up only after the carpet dries: cellulosic browning on a jute-backed wool, glazed olefin from an over-hot wand, a polyester lane that looks worse after cleaning because the pile was already crushed and nobody said so on arrival.

The rule this SOP enforces: an unidentified fiber is worked at the most restrictive limits present on the site, not at the shop's default.

Scope

Covers the arrival inspection on residential and small-commercial wall-to-wall carpet: construction read, fiber identification, backing and cushion check, prior-treatment history, and the working-limits card handed to the operator.

Does not cover the pre-existing damage photo record, colorfastness and dye-bleed testing, or rugs taken off the floor; each has its own SOP named in the references. Hand-knotted goods are not identified in the field at all, they go to the in-plant rug SOP.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Brief the customer, then protect the path. Say what the inspection is and that you may take a small fiber sample from a hidden spot. Lay walk-off protection from door to work area before anything else moves. Acceptance: verbal agreement to a sample recorded, entry path covered end to end with no gap at the threshold. Wrong looks like a customer surprised later by a snipped tuft; if they decline, take no sample, mark the fiber unknown, and run step 4 on the non-destructive tests only. Hazard: this is the path both of you walk with hands full, so protection goes down flat and taped at the threshold rather than bunched, and no cord crosses it.

2. Read the construction before you touch chemistry. Note cut pile, level loop, cut-and-loop, berber, or a natural weave such as sisal. Bend the pile back and read yarn twist and density at the base. Acceptance: construction type and a density call (dense, moderate, sparse, matted) written for every booked area. Wrong looks like calling a berber "loop" and missing that one pulled loop will run the length of the room; if you find a pulled or snagged loop, photograph it and flag it before any brush touches that area. Hazard: kneeling over an unknown subfloor, so use a folded towel, and never run a hand flat under a lifted edge where a gripper strip sits.

3. Find a sample point that will not show. Inside a closet behind the door swing, under a floor register, or in the carpet turned under at a transition. Acceptance: the point is invisible with the closet door open and the register seated, and a full tuft is reachable with hemostats. Wrong looks like sampling from open floor; if no concealed point exists, and sealed glue-down is the common case, stop, cut nothing, and carry the fiber forward as unknown into step 8. Hazard: tack strip at every wall and doorway carries angled nails that go through a finger to the bone, so lift an edge with a knee kicker or a gloved pinch at the carpet face, never by sweeping a hand into the gripper channel.

4. Run the non-destructive tests first. Compress the pile with a thumb and release: nylon springs back within a second or two, polyester stays flattened, olefin feels waxy. Read luster under a flashlight: polyester bright, wool dull and irregular, olefin flat. Check whether lane soil looks greasy and darkened rather than gritty, which points to oil-attracting polyester or olefin. Acceptance: at least two of the three observations agree on one family. Wrong looks like one test carrying the call; where the three disagree, treat it as a blend or unknown and take the more restrictive member's limits. Hazard: none, this is looking and pressing, but keep the flashlight beam out of the customer's eyes and the walk path clear.

5. Confirm by burn test only if a sample was obtained. One tuft in hemostats over a non-combustible dish, outdoors or in an open doorway, lighter held below it. Read flame behavior, residue and odor by wafting toward you, never with your face over it. Wool burns slowly, self-extinguishes off the flame, smells like burning hair, leaves a black bead that crushes to powder. Nylon and polyester melt, drip, leave a hard bead that will not crush, smell chemical. Cotton, rayon and jute burn fast, keep burning off the flame, smell like paper, leave soft gray ash. Acceptance: all three signs point to one family. Wrong looks like a bead that will not crush on a fiber you called wool; treat that as a blend and take the wool limits. Hazard: burning synthetics drip molten polymer that sticks to skin and keeps burning, and the smoke is a respiratory irritant, so one tuft only, dish on a hard surface at arm's length, and never inside the vehicle, near a solvent container, or under a smoke detector.

6. Check the backing and the cushion. At the sample point or a transition, look for woven jute secondary backing, jute or felted-hair cushion, or staining across the backing that indicates prior wetting. Acceptance: backing type, cushion type, and a yes or no on prior wetting, all recorded. Wrong looks like a missed browning risk, since jute plus over-wetting is where cellulosic browning comes from; find jute and you cap moisture at step 8 and say so out loud to the operator. Hazard: old jute and latex adhesive powder into an irritant dust when disturbed, so peel slowly rather than snapping the corner up, and if it is powdering, stop, re-seat it, and record delamination risk instead of opening it further.

7. Ask the treatment history in words the customer can answer. Not "has this been treated" but "has anyone cleaned this before us, and has anything been poured on a spot out of a bottle from under the sink". Acceptance: yes, no, or an explicit "customer does not know" for prior cleaning, prior spotters, and any stain-resist warranty paperwork. Wrong looks like leftover detergent residue that re-soils in three weeks and returns as your callback; where a spotter is reported, or a spot foams under plain water, plan the rinse for it and tell the customer that area may need a second pass. Hazard: none, this is a conversation, though hold it clear of the doorway if the entry is icy or wet.

8. Write the working-limits card and put it on the wand. Four values, no more: maximum solution temperature at the wand, pH band, agitation allowed, moisture level. Shop defaults are nylon at full heat and the pre-spray's own label pH, wool at a neutral band with reduced heat, olefin held down on heat because polypropylene softens near 320 F and glazes at a wand, polyester also cooler though it melts near 480 F and is not glazed by extraction heat, because it holds oily soil and takes oil-cutting chemistry rather than heat, and any unknown or blended fiber taken at its most restrictive member. Acceptance: the card exists, is legible, and the operator reads it back before mixing. Wrong looks like limits agreed verbally and a default mix going into the jug anyway; if the operator cannot read it back, rewrite it. Hazard: this is a decision made standing still, but confirm here that any edge lifted at step 3 or 6 is re-seated onto its gripper with no loose edge standing, because that edge is a trip hazard for the customer the moment you turn your back.

9. Brief the customer on the limits and take the go or no-go. Where the fiber is restrictive or unknown, say what it changes: lower heat, less moisture, slower dry, and a realistic outcome on set-in lanes. Acceptance: the customer has heard the limit, the expected outcome and any declined area, and it is on the ticket. Wrong looks like the crew quietly doing a gentler job while the customer expects the full result; if they insist on treatment outside the limits, do not proceed, call the owner, record the refusal. Hazard: none, but do not deliver this briefing with the truck-mount running, because a customer who could not hear the limit has not been told it.

The record this produces

Onto the job ticket and into the customer file: construction type and density per area; the fiber call plus which tests supported it; whether a sample was taken and from where; backing and cushion type; prior-wetting evidence; treatment history as reported; the four working limits; and the customer's go or no-go with any declined area named. Two photos minimum, the sample point before and after re-seating, plus any pulled loop or delamination found at step 2 or 6.

The next crew reads the fiber call and the limits card first, which is the point: identification is done once and inherited, not re-guessed by whoever shows up in eighteen months.

Worked pass: upstairs bedroom, glue-down, no sample point

Bedroom booked at 12 ft by 14 ft, so 168 sq ft, with a visible traffic lane 3 ft wide running the 14 ft length, so 42 sq ft, and 42 divided by 168 is 25 percent of the room. Customer says "it is nylon, the builder said so" and reports no prior cleaning.

Step 2 records cut pile, moderate density, lane matted rather than soiled. Step 3 fails: the reach-in closet has a sliding track sitting on the carpet, the only register is a wall register, and both doorway transitions are glued with no turned edge to reach. No concealed sample point exists. The stop rule fires, no cut is made, and the fiber goes forward as unknown.

Step 4 still runs. Thumb compression does not recover within two seconds. Luster reads bright rather than dull. Lane soil reads greasy and darkened rather than gritty. All three point away from nylon and toward polyester, against the customer's stated fiber.

Step 5 does not run, no sample. Step 6 gets a partial read at a seam beside the closet track: synthetic secondary backing visible without peeling, no jute, no cushion staining. Step 7 confirms no prior cleaning and no bottled spotter.

Step 8 writes the card at the restrictive end: heat held down because an unknown fiber could be olefin, which glazes, while polyester does not glaze and instead answers to oil-cutting chemistry on the greasy soil this lane read, pH at the pre-spray's own label value, agitation by groomer only because a crushed lane does not respond to brush aggression, moisture normal because the backing is synthetic with no cushion staining. Operator reads it back.

Step 9 tells the customer two things: the fiber does not behave like the nylon they were told it was, and the 42 sq ft lane is crushed rather than dirty, so it comes out cleaner but not fuller. That sentence prevents the callback, because 25 percent of the room will look different from the other 75 percent however well the cleaning goes. Ticket records fiber unknown, probable polyester, no sample obtainable, limits at the restrictive end.

Self-check against the sections above: no fiber was identified, so step 8's most-restrictive rule governed rather than the shop default; the only figures used downstream, 168 sq ft and 42 sq ft, were both stated at the top of this run.

References

• IICRC S100 Standard for Professional Cleaning of Textile Floor Coverings, in the edition your certifying body currently publishes, which binds you through your own certification rather than by law
• The carpet mill's own care and maintenance sheet for the specific product, which is the governing document where it and a general standard disagree on temperature or pH
• Cleaning product labels at the dilution you are actually mixing; label directions are binding in the chemical trades
• See related: carpetcleaning-fiber-id-care-chart, carpetcleaning-fiber-test-burn-id, carpetcleaning-pre-existing-condition-documentation, carpetcleaning-colorfastness-and-ph-testing-before-cleaning