Commercial carpet is a different material
Most offices are laid with glue-down commercial loop carpet or carpet tile, not the cut-pile plush in a house. It is low, dense, and bonded directly to the slab with no pad underneath, which changes two things that matter to you.
First, it hides soil brilliantly until it suddenly does not — which is why an office floor looks acceptable for two years and then looks bad in the space of a few months. Second, and more importantly, there is no pad to absorb excess water. Over-wetting glue-down carpet softens the adhesive underneath and can cause bubbling and edge lift. Getting the water back out is the entire skill on a commercial floor, and it is the reason drying time is a service specification rather than a footnote.
Two methods, and when each is right
Residential work is nearly always hot-water extraction. Commercial work has a genuine choice, and the honest recommendation depends on what condition the floor is in:
- Hot-water extraction — restorative. The full clean. Hot solution into the carpet under pressure, immediately vacuumed back out with the soil. This is what a floor needs when it is genuinely dirty, when it has never been cleaned, or when you are turning a suite over for a new tenant. Longer drying time, much deeper result.
- Encapsulation — maintenance. A polymer solution is brushed into the traffic lanes; it surrounds each soil particle and dries into a brittle crystal that your own vacuum removes over the following days. Dries in about an hour, so a floor cleaned at 7pm is genuinely ready at 8am. It is the right answer for a lobby or corridor on a regular schedule, and the wrong answer for a floor that has been neglected for five years.
Most of my commercial clients end up on a sensible pattern: one restorative extraction to reset the floor, then encapsulation maintenance on the traffic lanes at intervals, with another extraction when it is actually needed. That costs less over a year than extracting everything every time, and the floor looks better throughout because it never gets far from clean.
Drying — the number that actually matters to you
Extraction on commercial carpet is usually dry in 3 to 5 hours, faster than residential because the pile is low, there is no pad, and offices normally have HVAC running. Encapsulation is walkable in about an hour. In practice this means an evening appointment is dry before opening in every realistic case, and I will tell you which method I am proposing and the honest dry time before you book, not after.
What I need from you before the visit
- Chairs and bins moved, or tell me and I will move them — it just needs to be agreed rather than discovered at 7pm.
- Access details in writing: door code, alarm code and who to call. Being locked out of a suite at 7pm on a Sunday wastes the slot for both of us.
- Somewhere to draw water, and confirmation the power to the area is on.
- Tell me about known problem areas — the spot under the coffee machine, the printer that leaked toner. Toner in particular needs a specific approach and a warning, because rubbing it makes it permanent.
The entry mat conversation
The great majority of what ends up in a commercial carpet walks in through the front door on shoes, and it concentrates in the first fifteen feet. A proper walk-off matting system at every entrance — long enough that a person takes several full steps on it — captures a large share of that before it reaches your carpet. It is the cheapest thing you can do to extend the life of a floor and to stretch the interval between cleanings. I will point out where matting is too short or missing when I walk the space, because it saves you money on my own invoice.
Commercial pricing
Commercial work is quoted after a walk-through rather than off a price list, because square footage alone does not describe the job — a 2,000 sq ft open office with six desks and a 2,000 sq ft salon with fixed stations and a colour room are very different amounts of work.
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Hot-water extraction — restorative | Quoted on walk-through |
| Encapsulation — maintenance | Quoted on walk-through |
| Small suites and single offices | from $189 |
| Recurring schedule — monthly or quarterly | Discounted |
Small suites, single offices and salon floors often fall inside the $189 minimum, in which case I can quote over text without a visit. For anything larger, text me the address and rough square footage and I will come and walk it — usually the same week, and always at a time that does not interrupt you.
Who this suits
Owner-operated is the point here. There is no crew rotating through your suite, no different technician every quarter, and no account manager between you and the person holding the wand. You get one phone number, and the person who answers it is the person who cleaned your floor last time and remembers where the bad spot is.
