Carpet cleaning can be expensive when you have a carpet cleaning company come in and do it.
The price can be charged per room or carpet or square footage.
Depending on your space, it may cost you less to rent a Rug Doctor from Walmart and do the work yourself.
Make sure you understand how they charge you so you can plan how many days you need to rent.
Depending on your space, it may or may not be cheaper to do it yourself.
How Much Does It Cost To Rent A Rug Doctor At Walmart?
The cost to rent a Rug Doctor from Walmart runs between $25 and $35 per day with accessories and cleaners that run from $5 to $25 for each item.
Rug Doctor has kiosks at most Walmart locations.
What Models Of Rug Cleaner Does Rug Doctor Offer?
The models that most of the Walmart kiosks offer will vary from store to store and town to town.
The models you are likely to find are Pro Portable or Pro Deep, X3 , Mighty Pro, or Wide Pro.
What If I Want To Rent It for An Extra Day?
There are no late fees if you should take the rug cleaner back late.
However, you will have to pay for each day of the daily rental at full price.
For example, if you rented it for three days at $30 per day, and kept it out an extra two days, they would charge you $90 for the three initial days and an extra $60 for the two late days.
How Do I Rent A Rug Doctor from Walmart?
There are two ways to rent the machine and cleaning chemicals.
Physically, go to the kiosk and choose your machine and cleaning chemicals of choice.
It’s a self-service kiosk.
Swipe your credit or debit card, and this will unlock the machine for you to take home and use.
The second way to rent a machine conveniently is to reserve the machine online.
Find out if your local store offers the online reservation service.
If they do, then renting is simpler.
Once you locate the address of the Walmart you choose, you’ll see a “Reserve Now” button below that address.
You can rent the machine, choose the cleaners, and pay online.
Pick up the machine from the kiosk with your cleaners and attachments, and you’re ready to start cleaning.
The kiosks are typically found in the front portion of the Walmart store, adjacent to the customer service desk.
However, not all Walmart locations have them.
It’s best to go onto the site to see which Walmart will have one near you.
How Do I Know What Type Of Cleaners And Attachments To Use?
The company offers a variety of attachments and cleaning chemicals.
The key is to know what will work with your type of floor treatment.
You have the option to make your own floor cleaner, but the company strongly suggests you use theirs for the most optimal results.
They also don’t accommodate hard floors and grout cleaning, but you will be able to use this type of floor cleaning system for carpet and upholstery.
The attachments are for upholstery such as cloth chairs and couches.
The other types of attachments are so you can reach places that are hard to clean with the machine itself.
You may want to take a picture of your space and have a look at the attachments they offer.
Measuring the distance of hard-to-reach places against the attachments will help you get the whole area.
How Do I Return a Rug Doctor To Walmart?
Enter your information via the same touch screen you used to rent it.
Once you’re done cleaning your carpet, you’ll need to return it on time in order to avoid a full-day penalty charge for each day you return it late.
Place the machine on the staging area and you’re done.
You don’t have to empty and clean the machine.
Walmart won’t charge you, but cleaning it does two things.
It keeps the machines in good working order.
If machines break, Walmart may not rush to replace or repair them.
When something is too much to handle in the store, they reserve the right to withdraw the service as does any business that offers third-party services.
You’ll want the service again when you need it.
How Do I Clean My Type Of Floor Properly?
There are a lot of things to know when cleaning a floor.
Renting a machine is simple, but the hard part is the cleaning.
Why?
There are a lot of floor materials these days, and people have been known to ruin their floors by choosing the wrong chemical or they didn’t have the correct attachments.
Doing your floors yourself may be cheaper, but if you don’t know everything you need to know about your floors, you might find it more expensive to rectify the situation later.
What Should I Do And Not Do With My Carpet Cleaner?
When you rent a carpet cleaner, you won’t get the instruction manual as you would with one that you buy.
However, there is a company website where you can learn the proper function and use of the particular model.
There are also some things to know about any carpet cleaner which you’ll find here.
- Read Important Information: The company website should have the most important function and safety information in order to clean your carpets well.
- Clean the Heads/Brushes: The brushes should be cleaned after you do a large section of a room or a large room. The brushes will get debris caught up in them, and this will only serve to transfer that debris from one room to another. This causes frustration and makes a simple job more difficult than it needs to be. Besides, nobody loves a do-over!
- Use the Recommended Cleaning Chemicals: The manufacturer has recommended cleaners because the machine is designed to be used with them. If you stray from the product recommendation, several things can happen depending on who you rent or purchase one from. The machine could break, which is the worst-case scenario, or it could stain the material you’re working on and ruin it.
- Don’t Expose the Carpet Cleaner to Extreme Temperatures: Carpet cleaners are sensitive to extreme heat and humid conditions as well as cold. Never keep the machine outdoors or in areas in or around the home that may have these temperatures. Some examples are basements, patios, attics, and decks.
- Always Follow Proper Preparation: In the next guide below, you’ll learn everything you need to do in order to have 100% carpet cleaning success. The following tips can be used with success with a Rug Doctor brand.
How To Clean Your Carpet With A Rug Doctor Carpet Cleaner
- Prepare the Area: For this, it’s best to first get the attachments you need to get around furniture that you can’t move. Otherwise, you may begin to move any furniture you can move easily enough into the middle of the room. This is so you can clean the perimeter of the room and do the middle last. This saves a lot of energy and is the most logical way to do a thorough and efficient carpet cleaning.
- Vacuum and Remove Debris and Pick Up Toys: You’ll surely have dust and debris that you’ve not seen in ages. You may be keeping a spotless home, but it’s only normal that you’d have debris in the corners and by the walls and under furniture. If you have pets, hair will flow with the air conditioner and fans to those areas as well. You’ll want to pick up any pet toys that are in the way, too.
- Pre-Treat the Floor: Pre-treating with the recommended pre-treatment solution is the next step. It’s typically a spray. Treat the spots from spills, pets, kids, and all high-traffic areas first. Do this in the order that you will be cleaning the rooms for the best result. For example, if you are going to start in the bedroom and end in the living room, pre-treat the rooms in that order.
This way, the product will get a chance to sink in and start to dissolve the stains while you are at the starting point—in this case, the bedroom.
The pre-treatment can be done on some of the exposed stains prior to moving the furniture so there’s more time for the product to sink in.
Some stains and high traffic areas can be stubborn.
- Gather All Your Equipment: Apart from the machine, chemicals, and attachments, you may want a bucket. Fill this with nine inches of water that is hot but never boiling. This is to fill the tank with and replace the water when dirty. You’ll do this by first removing the white recovery tank.
- Measure Detergent Correctly: For the Rug Doctor, the correct amount of their recommended detergent is approximately one coffee cup according to the company. We believe a cup and saucer style and not a mug, but roughly eight ounces should do it. It’s best to underdo than overdo. You can easily add, but not take away.
- Understand Water Temperature Requirements: For woolen rugs, be sure to change the temperature of the water to lukewarm or tap warm. Woolen rugs and some acrylic rugs will be ruined by hot water.
- Adjust the Machine Ergonomically: To avoid injury using the machine, make sure you adjust the handle to a height good for you. There’s a handle release at the top.
- Test Things Out: Before the first use, gently tilt the machine back so that the brushes aren’t touching the carpet. Test the sprayer. The switch is on the top and is red.
- Don’t Over Wet the Rug: The Rug Doctor is what’s called a one-pass carpet cleaner. That means you don’t need to go over the same area twice with the wet setting. With the vacuum setting, you may pass more than once. The same rule applies: You can’t take away, but you can always add.
- Make the Passes Efficiently: Once you are a couple of inches from the wall, release the sprayer so you can turn smoothly without over-wetting.
Cleaning a carpet shouldn’t take a manual and a lot of complicated effort.
However, it can be this way when you’re a first-timer and have no knowledge of the complexity of chemicals and machinery.
For optimal life, a carpet should be maintained from the very beginning.
Carpeting is still used widely around the country, contrary to popular belief.
The carpet is only as good as its underlay.
That’s one valuable secret we’ll leave you with.
The underlay is the “guts” of the carpet.
Once the underlay is thinned out by heavy steam cleaning, it has to be replaced.
The carpet will begin to wear much faster.
If you are investing in a carpet, invest in the underlay first, and cleaning it will be an asset.
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Q says
Great write up here. Thank you.
Gail says
Lots of good tips!! Thank you!