Cleaning Boat Carpet?

[Sharky]

What is the best way to clean boat carpet? My boat is 3 years old and I have been spot cleaning the dirty spots with a can of Resolve. I'm thinking of renting a carpet cleaner with the furniture attachment but I'm not sure if it would damage the backing on the carpet.

[Hawgeye]

I have a Lund and have always taken the pressure washer to the carpet after using spot cleaner during a period of time. Usually twice a summer. Really cleans it up great. Just put fans in the boat for a day to help dry it all out. The shop vac sucks up most of the water.

As for the carpet shampooer, I don't think it will cause any problems. I used a commercial one on my old Pro-V when I bought it and it worked great.

[Quik-net]

take every thing out ,remove the seat base's,and head for the car wash. It is so simple . I also clean mine about twice a season. Try to time it when there will be a day of sunhine that next day prop al the lids open to dry it out and it will look like NEW and costs less than renting a shampoo machine

[CI_Guy]

I agree with the other posts that the car wash or a high pressure washer are the best way to clean boat carpet. It works best if you use just the rinse setting without the soap. It is almost impossible to get all of the soap out, the oils in the soap atract dirt and the carpet looks dirty and matted much sooner. Good Luck!

[Al]

Pretreat it before you leave for the car wash with Simple Green. It really helps too.

[chadk66]

Ditto on the simple green. Awesome stuff.

[Carpet]

I have used extractors before, but this year I Sprayed Carpet with a Bottle of "That Purple Stuff" similar to Castrol "Super clean" Next I misted the carpet with warm water then Scrubbed it with a Brush.. The hard Part is rinsing all the suds out. This will take a while, open all floor drain covers and keep spraying with a pressure washer at the local do it yourself car wash until it is done. I let the carpet dry outside on a warm day with all hatch lids open. I spray a lite mist of Lysol Or Fabric aerosol air freshener to prevent mildew. good Luck

[St Croix Boy]

Ditto on the car wash. Works great. Do it on a sunny day so it can bake in the sun with all hatches open. Just got back from LOTW. Wow what a dirty messs in my boat. Now if we could only get a sunny day!
P.S. Don't show up at the car wash during a busy time of the day. People tend to get pi$$ed off.

[Lund_Dude]

Can you explain this a bit further? What is simple green and how is it used? THanx!

[GregK]

My wife has a guy that comes and cleans the carpets in the house with one of those truck mounted commercial cleaning machines. I had him do the boat the last time he was out to clean the house carpets and the boat looked like new when he got done. He told me he does this kind of thing all the time. In the bargin he threw it in with the deal to clean the carpets!

[Old Fishermanrr]

I'm with the other guys that have theirs done when the carpet in the house is done. They scotch guard mine and its good until next year as long as you wipe up spills, etc. as they happen. Doesn't cost much $15.00.

[Gumbo]

I've tried several things to clean my boat carpet over the past year and I finally got them good as new again. I bought my wife the new upright Bissell carpet cleaner, and I used it on the boat carpet. First I removed all the seat bases on the floor so I had an even surface to work with. Then I cleaned it once with solution followed by about five passes with plain water until it started sucking up clean water. I did my Tyee 1950 in 30 minutes and it looks great.

[Westy]

I took the advice to use the high pressure car wash last night. This worked great and even seemed to bring the loft back into the carpet. The boat is only two years old so the carpet came out looking nice. I had just been vacuuming the carpet after every trip and it was getting really matted down. This seemed to work really well. Good Luck.