If you read most carpet warranties, you'll see that bonnet cleaning is the kiss of death — both to your warranty and to your carpet. In fact, many carpet mills have conducted their own research and determined that bonnet cleaning can cause excessive carpet damage. As these articles are designed to provide you with information that will guide you in implementing a thoughtful carpet care program that offers positive results, this particular article will walk you through the most common dangers of bonnet cleaning and provide some clarification on how to proceed with bonnet cleaning if you must.

Beware the Bonnet
In general, bonnet cleaning is a process of moving dirt, not removing it. So while it may provide the appearance of a clean carpet, its use rarely actually results in a clean carpet. This isn't "bonnet-bashing." Rather it is a statement of the effectiveness, or lack there of, of trying to wipe dirt from your carpet by using rotary bonnets that offer no mechanism for cleaning the dirt from those bonnets.

Rotary bonnet cleaning involves the use of chemical that is pre-sprayed onto the carpet and bonnets that are designed to wipe away the dirt and re-absorb the chemical. The inherent problem is that a bonnet can absorb only a finite amount of chemical and soil. And once saturated, the bonnet will no longer wipe dirt away but rather transfer that soil and chemical back into your carpet, which results in a cycle of resoiling that can become virtually impossible to correct.

In reality, there is no mechanism in bonnet cleaning for removing dirt deep within the carpet pile or completely removing the pre-sprayed chemical from your carpet, which makes it virtually impossible to remove the soil from your carpet. If your bonnet is as dirty as your carpet, the rotary wiping action of the bonnet cleaner is simply smearing the dirt into the carpet. If your bonnet is dirtier than your carpet (perhaps you cleaned a high traffic entry area and then moved to a less frequently used office space), the rotary wiping action of the bonnet cleaner is actually transferring dirt into your carpet.

In addition, bonnet cleaning involves grinding the bonnet into the carpet in an effort to lift the soil from the carpet fibers. If any actual dirt, debris or sand is in the carpet, such grinding can result in abrading — or scraping off — the top of those carpet fibers. Carpet fibers become untwisted and severely frayed. These "open" carpet fibers, filled with residual chemical, become magnets for additional soiling issues.

Appropriate Bonnet Cleaning
If you must use a bonnet to clean your carpet, follow these simple rules to reduce the likelihood of damaging your carpet and to appropriately set your expectations as to the results you should anticipate.

1. Only use a bonnet if your carpet warranty has expired to avoid any potential warranty issues with your carpet manufacturer.

2. Only use bonnet cleaning in conjunction with other carpet care technologies, including vacuuming, ReadySpace® technology, or extraction, and never as the sole means of caring for your carpet.

3. Recognize that bonnet cleaning only removes the very top layer of dirt from your carpet surface and, therefore, should be used only for targeted periodic appearance improvement.

4. Realize that bonnet cleaning has no way of removing all the pre-sprayed chemical from your carpet, which means chemical will be left behind and could attract dirt.

5. Always use a clean bonnet that has been slightly moistened with your cleaning solution — but never use the dual-bucket method of over-saturating your bonnet in water or solution.

6. Flip and/or change your bonnet every 100-square feet or less depending on how dirty the carpet is.

In reality, the downside of bonnet cleaning really does far outweigh the upside. But if applied correctly, rotary bonnet cleaning can temporarily improve the appearance of your carpet.