Carpets in Brentford go by the room. A bedroom costs £36 and a living room £43. Through lounges are £61, stair flights £41 each, and loose rugs £35 up to 3 sq m or £51 above it. The method is hot water extraction: heated solution driven into the pile under pressure, then lifted straight back out on the same stroke, so the carpet ends up damp rather than wet. Two local facts change how we run the machine here, and each gets its own section below.
Rooms, stairs and rugs
| Room or item | Price |
|---|---|
| Bedroom | £36 |
| Living room | £43 |
| Through lounge | £61 |
| Stairs, per flight | £41 |
| Rug up to 3 sq m | £35 |
| Rug over 3 sq m | £51 |
Where somebody opened the lounge and dining room into each other, that is one through lounge at £61 and not a pair of rooms. Halls get quoted with whatever they open into, while a landing is always its own £9 on top of the stairs. One off work meets a £67 floor, so a lone bedroom at £36 bills at £67 anyway; adding the stairs makes two bedrooms and a flight £113 and gets a good deal more out of the same visit. Everything else is on the prices page.
The slab is why our drying advice runs long
Nearly all the new stock in Brentford is concrete slab with underfloor heating and no ventilated void beneath it. In an older house on suspended timber, air moves under the boards and takes moisture away from the back of a carpet without anybody lifting a finger. On a slab there is nothing under there at all. Every drop that goes into the pile has to leave through the room air, so the backing and the underlay dry last and dry slowest, and damp in one of these flats will not air out from below however many windows you open.
What follows from that is practical. Less water goes down in the first place, more dry passes come back over the same lane, the rate of travel drops, and an air mover comes out as a matter of course. If you have underfloor heating, set it low and leave it there for the afternoon. Turn it up and the face dries first while the backing stays wet, which is what produces a smell a fortnight later. Furniture goes back on protectors, since a metal foot standing on a damp pile leaves a rust ring for good.
Barrowing the machine along the towpath
The terraces at Brentford Lock face the water and their front doors come off the towpath, so two of us barrow the kit along the canal from the nearest place to park. Mention the towpath at the booking, and the extra time goes into the slot instead of coming out of the clean.
In the managed blocks on the Great West Road and the canal the problem inverts. Access there means a loading bay slot and a goods lift window agreed with the concierge in advance, and the kit travels up in that lift. It takes a little longer and adds nothing to the bill.
Extraction against the two methods it gets confused with
Bonnet cleaning spins an absorbent pad under a rotary head. It takes off what is sitting on top of the pile and stops there. Dry powder is brushed in, left a while and vacuumed away. Fast, and honestly the right call at three in the morning down a hotel corridor. What neither method reaches is the gritty stuff lodged at the bottom of the tuft, which is what abrades the fibre every time somebody walks across it. Extraction reaches it, which is the entire case for using water.
The sequence matters as much as the machine. Vacuum properly first, pre-spray, then wait. Brush the traffic lanes. Extract last. Cut out the waiting and you get a carpet that looks excellent while it is wet and turns grey again inside a week.
Why the rinse gets softened in TW8
The supply across Brentford is very hard. Take a pale wool or wool mix, rinse it off an untreated tap, and as the pile dries the mineral content is left sitting in it. What you get is a faint chalky cast, which anyone would reasonably read as the dirt coming back. So the rinse is softened and the fibre neutralised before the kit is packed away, and pale carpet stays pale.
Stairs, and the flight people forget to mention
Flights are £41 apiece and they are slow going, because the hand tool takes one tread at a time with the operator walking backwards. A staircase turning on a half landing counts as a single flight, and the landing adds £9. Two full storeys count as two. That catches people out in the Victorian and Edwardian terraces off Clifden Road and Boston Manor Road, where the winders are tight enough that the machine goes up in parts and gets rebuilt on the landing. Twenty minutes, built into the slot.
Marks that lift
Tea and coffee, mud walked in off a wet towpath, most food spills, pet accidents caught before they soaked in. Those come out, or close to it. Red wine improves a great deal so long as nobody attacked it with a tea towel first. Tell us what has already been tried on a mark. Each gets a real go and you are told on the day how it went.
Sofas, mattresses and curtains
Soft furnishings run through the same machine with a hand tool, softer, with more of the water recovered so nothing finishes sodden. They are priced per piece: dining chairs £13, armchairs £33, mattresses £35, two seater sofas £57, curtains £35 on a short drop and £42 on a long one, done where they hang. The upholstery page covers care codes and drying.
Booking carpets with something else
Carpet work here usually rides along with another job. Households on the weekly round add a room or two each spring and put the stairs through every time. On a handover clean the floors are billed separately, and for less, £29 a bedroom and £35 a flight, and agents round here frequently want the method named on the receipt, since extraction is what the inventory tends to specify. Ask for it in writing and you will get it. The same list runs over the bridge in Kew, where the floors are older and the machine gets set differently again.
Questions we get asked
How long do carpets take to dry in Brentford?
About two hours before a room takes feet in an older house. Longer in the new flats, where a concrete slab with no ventilated void underneath means nothing dries from below. Air movers usually bring that back to three or four hours.
Should I turn the underfloor heating up to dry the carpet faster?
No, keep it low. Heat dries the face first and traps moisture in the backing and underlay, which is exactly what starts a smell a fortnight later. Moving air does the job better than raising the temperature.
What does a rug cost?
£35 up to 3 sq m and £51 above that, done in the room rather than taken away. Backing decides the time more than size does, so tell us if yours is jute or latex backed, or if it has run colour in the past.
Is one room worth booking on its own?
On its own a £36 bedroom hits the £67 minimum for one off work and bills at £67. Adding the stairs is the sensible move, since they take the traffic, and two bedrooms with a flight lands at £113.
Can you reach a house on the towpath side at Brentford Lock?
Yes. Those doors come off the water, so the kit travels along the towpath on a trolley from where we park, and two of us come. Flag it at the booking so the slot carries the extra time.
Will you move furniture?
Sofas, chairs, beds and small tables, and everything goes back on protectors. Anything you clear beforehand is more floor the machine can get over.
Or ring 020 8077 4255. We answer seven days a week.