So how do you choose what carpet works for your home? Well, like many, just choose a style and go for it… right? Unfortunately, many have done exactly that and ended up with the berber blues! So what’s the berber blues? Well, it’s when a poor carpet buying decision was made…that simple! And yes, many consumers regret buying berber carpet, so it seems anyway!

Through the years, we have cleaned many homes with berber style carpet. Most consumers always say the same thing prior to a carpet cleaning. The claim, their berber carpet looks dingy and dull, also matted…what can you do with it? Many times the answer is more of an educational answer than anything else! Yep, understanding the differences in cleaning berber carpet are very different than other carpet. Hard to understand…carpet is carpet right? The answer is NO! Berber carpet is vastly different from a twisted fiber carpet for sure. The main difference is in the manufacturing process, which in the end, is a very different carpet.

Here’s the deal, berber carpet is what’s called a loop style carpet and is manufactured as exactly that…a loop! You see, berber carpet is esentially one LONG strand of fiber that’s sewn into the carpet backing. Yes, it’s basically like a sewing machine stitch for clothing, except it’s designed to manufacture a long or short loop for the berber carpet process. If you were to pull or snag (a berber loop) the carpet would RUN and and keep going until there was no fiber left. At this point, the carpet would be destroyed and not salvageable! This is another reason why customers complain about berber carpet. Many times, customers will snag the berber loop with a vacuum cleaner brush! Once this happens the carpet is ruined and CANNOT be salvaged! If your home has a berber carpet, we recommend snipping the strand with a pair of scissors to keep it from running causing severe damage.

Since berber carpet is comprised of millions of little loops, the care and maintenance is different than other carpet types. Since the (loop style) carpet is perfect from the carpet mill, it’s very easy to disrupt the loop causing streaking in the fiber. This can happen by dragging a chair or furniture across the carpet. The weight from the furniture causes a disruption in the loop and leaves a line in the carpet that’s permanent! Yep, once the line is there, the loop has been disrupted and cannot be removed. We see this often in commercial buildings, where office furniture was drug during the moving process causing damage. Berber also has a tendency to MATTE down and lose it’s luster! Berber loops are so close together that over time begin to form into a flat surface called matting. Once a berber carpet begins to flatten, there’s nothing you can do about it…it’s just flat berber carpet at that point! You can see why some consumers regret the purchse of berber carpet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to beat-up berber carpet here…just explaining some of the issues related with owning it. Also, cleaning berber carpet is different from others as well. Many carpet professional have a hard time getting the carpet wand to (bite the fiber) meaning good suction to remove the soil contamination. Since the berber loops are typically matted, the carpet cleaning wand tends to HOP across the carpet not getting good suction. This means a poor carpet cleaning job! Also, many carpet cleaning systems use heat up to 220 degrees! But, on commercial jobs, most berber carpet is glued down and the heat from cleaning (MAY) cause the berber to bubble…it’s rare, but can happen. Either way, purging millions of little loops is difficult to do from a cleaning perspective. Also, once berber has become matted, the cleaning process cannot lift the fiber back because there’s really no fiber to work with in the first place! This means dull looking carpet even after a cleaning.

In all, berber is hearty from a longevity perspective if maintained properly, but very difficult to do! This is why you see berber in commercial building as you can simply beat it up and it keeps going! The problem is after time berber begins to look old and dingy and cannot be reversed hints the BERBER BLUES!