01Advice
Steam cleaning or extraction cleaning
Steam works by temperature: it dissolves grease in place, gets into grout and joints, and leaves very little moisture behind.
Extraction works by water that comes straight back: the machine injects solution into a textile and draws it back out in the same pass, carrying the loosened soiling with it.
They are two different jobs, not two grades of the same one. The surface decides which of them it gets.
What goes to extraction
- carpets, runners and carpeted floors
- sofas, sofa suites and armchairs
- upholstered chairs and headboards
- mattresses
For all of that we use Puzzi extraction machines, with a roller brush for carpets.
What goes to steam
- kitchen worktops, extractor hoods, ovens and the space behind appliances
- grout between tiles, on floors and on walls
- toilets, basins, showers and taps
- frames, handles, switches and awkward joints
In the old stone houses of Dubrovnik the bathrooms were often fitted in later, with narrow grout lines and joints a cloth never reaches; that is a job for the SG 4/4 and a narrow nozzle.
And exterior surfaces
Terraces, stone, staircases, railings and driveways are neither: that is pressure washing, cold water and pressure.
The common mix-up
Steam does not replace extraction on a textile. It can be part of the work, but what a dirty sofa needs is for the soiling to be removed from the fibre, and that takes something that draws the water back out.
If you are searching for "steam cleaning a sofa", what you almost certainly want is extraction cleaning.
Where steam is the better answer, and where it is not
Where there is a reason to use as little chemistry as possible: kitchens, bathrooms, rooms children use. Steam works by temperature, so the amount of product is small, though there is some.
Some materials do not take high temperature: untreated wood, heat-sensitive components, some laminates. We check the surface first and suggest a different method where steam is not appropriate; a method that is wrong for your material is better heard beforehand than afterwards.
In practice both are used in the same property
Steam in the kitchen and bathroom, extraction on the textiles, high pressure on the terrace. That is the definition of a whole-apartment deep clean, and the reason scope is agreed room by room and surface by surface.
Kärcher makes our equipment. We are not a partner or a service centre; we work with their machines.
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Which material, which surface
Tell us what the surface is and where: fabric, tiles, stone. If you are not sure, a photograph settles it.
We use your details only to reply to this enquiry.
Or directly by email
deep.clean.dubrovnik@gmail.comFor a larger property we come and look at the space first; for a single piece of furniture or a carpet a short description is enough.