Dyeing carpet yourself
Amy Morrison
ourselves, by putting some dye into our carpet cleaner. The carpet is
a light beige and is currently very stained. WE've cleaned and cleaned
the thing, and it only seems to make the stains even more prominent as
the surrounding carpet gets cleaner. I would think it would take up
dye very well seeing as how any slightly colored liquid leaves a stain
no matter how quickly we try to clean it. WE have three children
between us-- 12 y.o. boy, 7 y.o. girl and 20 month old girl. Actually
the girls are the worst as far as making carpet stains-- the 7 y.o. is
always spilling things, and so is the toddler. We are thinking of
making the carpet in our main living/dining room, where most of the
stains are, a dark blue color in hopes that this will conceal the
stains. We don't want to invest in new carpet or a commercial dye job
as it is our goal to save up to install hardwood floors. We just need
to make it look better in the short term for as little money as
possible. And we are aware that the carpet might end up pretty funky
looking, but it looks so bad now, we don't really think we can make it
worse. The main concern is how to keep the dye in the carpet once we
dye it--will it tend to bleed if we use, say, Rit dye? IS there
somewhere we could buy a carpet dye without having to buy a bunch of
other junk? What can we put on it to set the dye?
db...@sprynet.com
job.. you will not.. the stuff they use works.. the Rit dye is not made
for carpets and will not go into the threads, will only cover them up...
then you will have the carpet dye smell forever and you will have to
pull it up as you cant take the smell.. the dye places will wash the
stuff out, just like you do when you dye clothes, can you do that?????
Gene Berkowitz
Amy...@hotmail.com says...
I wouldn't recommend this.
Instead, clean the carpet WITHOUT using the carpet shampoo,
just hot water. You'll find the water gets soapy from the previous
shampoo. Repeat until you stop getting suds.
Unless you get all the soap back out the residue acts like a dirt magnet.
The stained areas, since they tend to get the most "attention" when
shampooing, attract the new dirt the most.
--Gene
bentcajungirl
can actually make things worse. Use the carpet cleaner to pick up the
excess until the water doesn't sud. After it's clean rinsed and DRY, VERY
DRY, you can get some cans of Scotchguard and spray traffic areas.
I have seen several dye jobs on carpets. Even the best jobs are the pits.
My step mother had her carpets dyed, and for at least 10 years after, no one
could wear white socks in the house. The socks picked up the dye
color(brown). And the carpets always felt gooey.
Perry
bentcajungirl
pieJean
"bentcajungirl" <tem...@cajun.net> wrote
> I have seen several dye jobs on carpets. Even the best
jobs are the pits.
> My step mother had her carpets dyed, and for at least 10
years after, no one
> could wear white socks in the house. The socks picked up
the dye
> color(brown). And the carpets always felt gooey.
We had a carpet dyed some 20 years ago, so things may have
changed a bit, but our results were positive and we never
had dye come off on anything, even including the toddler/his
clothing who spent a lot of time on the floor.
Our carpet was a quality carpet in good shape (without
stains), the color was just gawdawful. I would not do it
myself unless you can get carpet dye and rent whatever
equipment you need for the job - I watched the process when
we had it done - it was a big job. The pros made sure the
color was even and were very attentive about ensuring the
dye didn't get onto walls/wallpaper, furniture, non-carpeted
floors, etc. during the dying process.
A couple of things to consider: you will be dying
everything, including any stains, which may make them MORE
noticeable, not less. Your dyed carpet may continue to
stain. If you go VERY dark, every piece of lint, etc., will
show. (Dark colors can be every bit as crazy-making as
light colors because they also show everything.) If your
carpet contains synthetics, you will need a dye intended for
those synthetics or your color will not be as expected, it
may not be permanent, and, you may have the problem of it
rubbing off on things as the poster above mentioned. Test
things in a closet first to be sure you like the color, etc.
Keep in mind that the color will change as it dries. (The
company that did out carpets sent someone out ahead of time
to do several test patches so we could decide what we wanted
and they could work out the formula they would be using. He
removed several 'swatches' from the coat closet, replacing
them when they came back to do the actual job. )
Our carpet had to be SATURATED, even down to the padding.
They even brought in 'rakes' (for lack of a better word) and
worked it down into the carpeting. There was a thorough
rinsing and extracting process afterwards. The house was
open (windows, etc.) around the clock afterwards as it took
days to completely dry, so take this into consideration is
deciding WHEN to do it. We also used as many fans as we
could to aid in the drying.
The company warned that, in spite of their efforts, there
might be some uneven spots, which might not show up until
after it was dry. Part of their service was that they came
back to do touchups a week or two later.
Have you considered getting a couple of inexpensive area
rugs? Even if you had to buy them one room at a time, I'm
betting the cost would be comparable (or maybe even cheaper)
than buying a bejillion packages of RIT.
Good luck,
Jean
AlienZen
"Amy Morrison" <Amy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5ffaddc9.02041...@posting.google.com...
> My fiance and I are toying with the idea of dyeing our carpet
> ourselves, by putting some dye into our carpet cleaner.
As others have pointed out, this will not work.
Polyester carpeting, (one of just a very few types of dyable carpeting) uses
color pockets in the fibers. When dying carpeting, a chemical is used which
opens these pockets up. After the dying process the chemical, along with excess
dye, is rinsed off, closing the pockets. If you do not have this chemical, your
dye will never take. It will just stick on the surface, waiting for ~anything~,
to rub it off. That would explain why one person remarked that the carpet felt
gummy, and it bled onto socks.
Also, when dying carpeting, the colors available are like adding food coloring
to water. the old color will form the foundation for the new color.
We used to dye carpets in slumlord owned apartments. We would go from tan to
chocolate brown. That was the only way the stains were hidden.
Leave this job to the pros.
HTH
Mike
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