Welcome to another exciting episode of Flying Under the Rug! Today we are flying over polyester and triexta fibers!

One thing I mention in this video is one of my “why’s:” I’m on a mission to help homeowners take better care of their homes, and by extension, their lives. Understanding your surfaces can make your home a better place to live.

I’m also on a mission to help people understand how to use chemicals more responsibly. We use WAY to many chemicals in our lives, and they cause a whole host of problems. Learning when, where and how to use these chemicals will save time, money, and a lot of headache.

And finally, teaching professional carpet and textile cleaners to be more efficient, more professional, and to elevate their cleaning game. Just putting this out to the universe, but I’d love to be interviewed by Mike Rowe and Tim Ferris; but I’m not sure carpet cleaning (or cleaning in general) is even on their radar. It should be! It’s something that happens everywhere we want to be. Whether we are in a restaurant, a gym, a church or our own homes, we want them to be clean!

Let me know your thoughts and questions in the comments! Don’t forget to subscribe to my page or YouTube channel, Flying Under the Rug!

Show Notes:

Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Flying Under the Rug with me, Dave Grigsby, the Flying Rug Guy.

And today we are brought to you by Zerorez® of Idaho, winner of the Idaho’s Best 2025, Treasure Valley, Eastern Idaho, and statewide winner. Find out today why Zerorez® is the best carpet cleaner in the state of Idaho. Give them a call at 208-383-1000. 208-383-1000 in Boise or visit them online at zerorezidaho.com.

Intro to Polyester/Triexta

Okay, today we are going to be flying over polyester and triexta. These are both some pretty awesome fibers. I do call them the silver standard of synthetic fibers and we’ll find out why. Polyester being a synthetic, it’s made from petroleum. It is a petroleum byproduct. technical name is polyethylene teraphthalate or PET. If you’re ever going to the store and you’re looking at carpets that you want to buy, PET means polyester. It doesn’t mean that it’s pet friendly. It doesn’t mean that it’s pet proof. It means that it’s made out of polyester, polyethylene tariff. It is a thermoplastic and that means that it can be melted down and reformed. If you’ve got an old carpet and you want to recycle it, you can melt it down and make a new carpet. Mohawk actually recently came out, recently being a few years ago, came out with a product called Aero. And the whole thing, carpet, the face fibers, the backing, and the cushion is all polyester. And so when you’re ready to replace the carpet, you just pull it up and take it down to the recycling place, and they’ll recycle the whole thing for you. Pretty cool. Okay.

It is common in textiles, especially in carpet and upholstery. We find it everywhere. We also find it in drink bottles, coke bottles, clothing, conveyor belts, seat belts, rope, cords. I mean, everything is made out of polyester these days. It is incredibly diverse. It’s it’s out there just about everywhere. You’re probably wearing polyester right now.

How Polyester is Made

The way they make polyester, it’s made with a polymerization process and they take teraphthalic acid and ethylene glycol and they put them together. And as they put these molecules together, think of them kind of like Lego bricks. As they put these molecules together, the water gets squeezed out from between the two molecules. And that right there is called polymerization. And this creates long chains of plastic or PET.

Once those chains are made, it creates polymer chips. These polymer chips can then be melted down gigantic vat and then they can be extruded through a spinerette. Very similar to nylon in that respect. At this stage, when we’ve got this big pot of melted plastic, that’s when color can also be added. And again, that’s called solution dying. That’s when pigments go all the way through the carpet fibers themselves when it’s extruded. So imagine a big shower head full of plastic and it’s the plastic is dripping down. The longer that plastic falls, the longer that stream falls, the thinner it becomes. The thinner it becomes, the softer the fiber it’s going to create.

Microfiber

The really long ones, those are called microfiber. So if you’ve heard of microfiber couches, microfiber towels, those are made out of polyester most of the time. There is some nylon out there, but most of the time it is made out of polyester. And microfiber, all it denotes is the thickness of that fiber of each of those individual filaments, usually less than one denier.

Dyeing Polyester

Dying polyester, polyester is often solution dyed, but it can also be dyed with what are called dispersed dyes. These are unlike acid dyes in that they’re not actually water soluble. They take these dyes, they they grind them up into a very very very fine powder. They put them in water with some other carriers, usually a surfactant base. They put that on the carpet and they are able to disperse and get into the very small cracks that are in a polyester fiber. They can also be dyed with what’s called dye sublimation. If you ever see people in bicycle jerseys or soccer uniforms, those are usually done with a sublimation method. And that’s where they change the dyes from a solid to gas when then the gas actually penetrates into those polyester fibers.

Intro to Triexta

Triexta is very similar to polyester. It is in the polyester family. For cleaning purposes, we consider it a polyester. Its technical name is polytrimethylene terapthalate. So it’s a little bit different. Polytrimethylene terapthalate or PTT plastic polyester. triexta is a little bit softer than traditional polyester. It’s stronger. It’s a little bit more resilient. It’s not as resilient as a nylon, but it’s more resilient than a polyester. It’s more stain resistant than a nylon. So is polyester. They’re both way more stain resistant than nylon. And also wool. They’re nowhere near as absorbent. They’re often made out of 30 to 37% corn glucose. Sometimes you might hear them called the corn carpet or the ethanol carpet. That’s because they’re made out of the derivatives of corn. Often, and I’ve got a piece of it right here. This is a Karastan right here. It is often marketed as SmartStrand Silk. Sometimes we’ll get customers that’ll call us up and say, “I’ve got silk carpet. Your carpet’s not made out of silk. Your carpet is a polyester carpet.” But it’s a brand name Silk. It’s just the name of the carpet that’s being sold to you. It is referring to PTT or triexta.

Pros of Polyester/Triexta

Some of the good things about polyester and triexta, they’re hard to stain. You can spill all kinds of stuff on them and they’re not going to stain. They are color fast. They don’t fade as easily. They’re harder to discolor. If you pour bleach on them, it’ll still bleach, but maybe not as fast as it will in nylon.

It’s got a very soft feel, and that’s one of the nice things about it. It’s nice and soft, and so as you’re running your hand on it, if you’re laying on it, it can be really nice and soft.

It is hydrophobic, so that means it’s resistant to water-based spill. Something water-based gets spilled on it, you got a good chance of being able to clean it up.

And it’s budget friendly. Compared to a nylon carpet, you might be looking at anywhere from half to maybe 2/3 the cost of a nylon carpet. and definitely maybe a third to half of the cost of a wool carpet. Don’t quote me on that, but it is significantly less expensive than a nylon or a wool. Some of the better polyesters, the triextas, like this Karastan triexta is definitely going to be in the price range of of a nylon carpet.

Cons of Polyester/Triexta

Some of the bad things about polyester and triexta is it’s oleopilic. That means it likes oil. Oleo meaning oil, phillic meaning likes or loves. Oil stains polyester really, really easily. And I’m not just talking about motor oil. I’m talking about cooking oil. I’m talking about skin oils. I’m talking about lotion. Any of those kinds of oils will adhere and they’ll stick to those carpet fibers really, really easily. And they’re hard to get off of.

It’s also got a low resiliency compared to wool or nylon. Usually, we can start seeing a traffic pattern in a wool or a nylon carpet. Usually about year three, we’ll start seeing a traffic pattern. Within 6 months, if you’ve got a polyester, you’re going to have a traffic pattern. So, that’s something to be aware of. If you’ve got a hight traffic area, polyester is probably not the way you want to go.

It’s also got low elasticity compared to wool or nylon. That means it stretches out, especially if you’ve got a loose fiber, something that’s not very dense. Like if you’re looking at this piece of carpet, this is a polyester as well. This is a a style called frieze. And if we look right there, we can look right down into the backing. There’s not a whole lot of fiber. It looks like it’s nice and plush, but in reality, it’s not very much there at all. As we’re walking on it, we’re going to stretch these carpet fibers out. They’re going to end up getting flattened out. they’re going to get sprayed. They’re just going to look like crap within a few months. Be aware of that if you’re buying kind of carpet.

Polyester is also softer than wool and nylon and so it scratches more easily. Imagine taking a Coke bottle, plastic Coke bottle, and then and then you kick it down the sidewalk. It’s going to get scratched really, really easily. And then that’s going to cause it to be dull. It’s not going to reflect light as easily, which is going to be a visual cue on something like a carpet or upholstered item. It’s going to wear out faster. It’s going to get scratched. It’s going to get dull. It’s not going to look the same as if it were brand new.

Things to look for when buying polyester/triexta

Some of the things to look for when you were looking at a polyester carpet if you’re looking to buy same as nylon or wool or really any other carpet. You want to look at the twist. How many twist does each one of these fibers have? Let me just show you this real quick. So, you can see this fiber right here. How it’s got these twists in here inside the yarn. So, this is two pieces of yarn that have been twisted together. We can do that. We can untwist it a little bit. The more twist, the more resilient it’s going to be. It’s not going to be as soft, but it’s going to be more resilient.

You also want it to be denser. I already showed you this piece of carpet where this is not very dense cuz we can just do that real quick and we can look right down into the backing of the carpet. This one is much, much more dense. It’s much better. If we look at that, it’s much harder to see the backing of the carpet. So, the denser the carpet is, the higher that twist rate. And you can see that this fiber, these fibers have a much higher twist rate even than this one, which actually has a pretty high twist rate.

Solution dyed is harder to stain. Same thing with nylon. Solution dyed carpets are just harder to stain, and that’s a good thing if you’ve got a lot of things going on on your carpet. Solution dyed is also less likely to fade. Now, polyester is really color fast. It’s not going to fade really easily, but it can happen. Print dyed is easier to replace, and this is when they’re using those dispersed dyes. print diet is easier to replace and it’s typically a little bit less expensive.

Home maintenance of polyester/triexta

Some of the home maintenance and this is the same for any kind of carpet that you have. You want to vacuum it regularly daily in those heavy traffic areas two to three times a week in the stuff that can be seen. And some manufacturers say vacuum underneath the furniture once a week. Get all that stuff out of the carpet. Clean my carpet for Mother’s Day for my wife. And I will tell you what, vacuuming underneath that furniture, it was amazing the difference just looking at it because I don’t do it very often. I don’t pull everything out and move all the furniture. Man, there was so much stuff underneath there. It was gross. General rule of thumb, once per week per person or pet in the house. So, you want to make sure that you’re getting there at least. If there’s two of you, vacuum twice a week at least. If there’s two of you and a dog and a cat, four times a week. You want to get all of that dirt, all that dust out of the carpet.

Slow, overlapping passes, changing direction. Same thing as with a nylon or a wool or any other carpet fiber. You want to do at least seven front and back. That’s a pass. Slow overlapping passes. And change the direction. North, south, east, west, northeast, southwest, whatever it is. Whatever you choose to do, change the direction. Get that beater bar to hit the carpet in different angles to make sure that you’re getting as much dirt as you possibly can out of the carpet.

You do want to clean up spots and spills as soon as possible. Polyester does give you a little bit of an advantage and that it’s not going to stain very easily. So, you have a little bit more time to pick things up. If the dog throws up, if the cats pee on the carpet, whatever, you’ve got some time to get to it before it be can become a permanent stain, but you still want to get it out as soon as you possibly can. Water and a shop vac. This is my go-to.

Actually, last week alone, I had two calls that came in from people that spilled something on their carpet and then they tried using bleach to clean it up. Dyed their carpet. $600 repair for me to go out there and re-dye the carpet and fix those bleach spots. So, we want to make sure that we’re not doing that.

We’re not using anything other than water in a shop vac to try and get as much of that stuff out of the carpet as possible. If there’s one reason why I wanted to start this video series and this this YouTube channel, this podcast, whatever you want to call it, it’s to get people to quit using the stuff inappropriately. Water and a shop vac is amazing. It will take care of most of what you need it to do.

If water in a shop vac doesn’t work, a neutral detergent if necessary. Use it according to the label directions. You don’t want to scrub the carpet. You want to blot the carpet, maybe tamp the carpet, but you never want to scrub carpet. And then rinse that detergent out. so that it doesn’t leave that residue which can then continue to attract dirt and then you get re-soiling issues.

BIG WARNING:

Just like with nylon carpet, stay away from cleaners that have the word oxy in them. They can bleach the dye sites and damage the carpet fibers. It’s going to look different on a polyester. It’ll look more like a purple spot on the carpet. Nylon wool, if an oxidizer gets spilled on them, they’re kind of going to be kind of a peachish yellow to white. Polyester is different. It kind of goes purple to green to then red. You want to make sure that you’re staying away from anything that has the word oxy in there.

Professional Maintenance:

For professional maintenance, polyester carpet should be cleaned at least once a year. Twice is definitely better. Especially if you’re a no-shoe house, you’ve got all kinds of oils in your carpet. Those oils come from cooking. The reason you can smell cookies or the turkey or whatever it is that you’re cooking, the reason you can smell it at the other end of the house, it’s the oil. It’s oils that are getting vaporized and traveling around through the air. Those oils will get heavy. They will land in the carpet. You’re walking on the carpet. Your skin has oils in it, especially if you put lotion on your feet. You’ve got even more oil on your carpet. It’s going to get in there and it can permanently stain that carpet. So, you want to get it cleaned more often than if you do actually wear shoes in the house. Kind of funny to think about it that way.

If you’ve got a lot of high traffic, get your carpets cleaned more often. Your technician should be trained and certified by the IICRC. That’s the Institute of Inspection Cleaning Restoration Certification.

Cleaning polyester carpet, you should always do a hot water extraction or encapsulation with a counterrotating brush. Stay away from the rotating pads. Those can destroy carpets, especially these. It’ll just absolutely destroy the nap on those carpets. I should have put some pictures on this where you can see exactly where somebody had one of those scrubby pads. It just totally destroyed the carpet fibers. Those pads can also leave a major residue.

Encapsulation. second best way of cleaning it. Hot water extraction absolutely the best way to get your carpets cleaned. No matter what kind of carpet you have, but that definitely for polyester.

Notes to Professional Carpet Cleaners

Some notes to professionals. If you’re a professional carpet cleaner and you’re watching this video and you’re thinking, “Well, when is he going to talk to me? He’s a carpet rug trader. Why is it, you know, he works for the IICRC or is a is an IICRC certified instructor. Why is he not talking to me?” Here’s your thing. Polyester is not very absorbent. Polyester dries quickly. So, if you’re cleaning a carpet professionally and you spray that carpet down, it can dry in minutes. So, only pre-spray as much as you can extract before it dries. You don’t want to over pre-spray. So, don’t go pre-spraying your entire house of carpet and then go through and extract it. It’s not going to work that way. The carpet will dry out faster. You’re just creating more work for yourself.

Polyester loves oil. Cooking oil, skinny oil, petroleum oils, it just loves oil. You can use some solvent boosters to help break those out. Just remember those solvent boosters can also be really hard to get out of your carpet.

One of the problems with triexta when it first came out, they said, “No, we’re not going to put any fiber protectors on this because then it just isn’t going to work the same and it’s going to void the warranty.” They came back a couple years later and I’m one of the reasons that they did that was because they found that they couldn’t get carpets clean again without that fiber protector because triexta absorbs the surfactants and then you can’t get those surfactants out. The carpets will get dirtier faster. They re-soil really quickly. So Mohawk actually started putting a fiber protector on their carpets even though they said you can’t do this because it’s it’s not necessary. It’s not going to work. They found out that it absolutely is necessary to put that fiber protector down.

So as a cleaner I don’t want to use a whole lot of surfactants. I don’t want to use a whole lot of detergents on polyesters or triextas because I’m never going to get them back out of the carpet and then the carpets are going to get dirtier faster. What I want to do though, I do want to make sure that I’ve got some extra agitation. Use your CRB. Run over those traffic patterns a few times. That’ll help loosen up that soil so that you can then extract it.

Fiber Protectors on Polyester and Triexta

Quick note on fiber protectors. Already talked about them. Fluorochemicals are the absolutely the best. Water-based or solvent-based. You want to make sure that you’re getting those reapplied. I like to do mine annually or every time I clean the carpets just to make sure that I’ve got that good protection built into that carpet. Makes it easier to clean up. makes it so that it just lasts longer for me. It’s not some special magic shield where the dirt now hovers 3 in above my carpet, but it does make it so that when I do come through and clean, it cleans up just like that. Makes my life a whole lot easier. Makes your life a whole lot easier, too.

Stay away from silicone based fiber protectors. Those are the waterproofing, the camping waterproofing stuff. Stay away from those. Those are no no good for carpet.

Conclusion

That’s our brief overview, our flying over polyester and triexta fibers. If you have any questions, drop me a note in the comments. If you like these videos, please drop me a note in the comments. Go ahead and subscribe for me and let me know that you’re listening. Let me know that you’re watching. Tell me what other things do you want to hear.

I’m flying through fibers. I’m trying to get that high overview of what we’re doing as carpet cleaners and upholstery cleaners, textile cleaners. Trying to get that high overview so we understand all these different things before I actually get into how to clean the this stuff. It is important. Is it life-saving? Maybe not. But it does help out if you’re going to try and clean your nylon carpet with some bleach or with Clorox wipes or something like that. Yeah, I’m going to save you a ton of money with this. So stay tuned, keep watching, let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you so much and join us next time for flying under the rug.