carpet 'bobbles'
 

We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent bobbles reforming?

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On Mar 18, 3:57*pm, pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?

--
pebe

What is a "bobble"? What exactly is your wife "pulling off"?

carpet 'bobbles'
 

Must be local usage term. I've got totally no clue, either. I figure it will
get explained some day.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"DerbyDad03" wrote in message
...

What is a "bobble"? What exactly is your wife "pulling off"?

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:21:50 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Mar 18, 3:57*pm, pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?

--
pebe

What is a "bobble"? What exactly is your wife "pulling off"?

I rookie'd under a carpet installer as a teen. Never heard of a
'bobbles'. Must be something new or ....

Pebe:
I like to think I know a little bit about carpet, but I have no idea what you mean by an 80/20 carpet. Does that refer to the fiber content (80% nylon and 20 percent something else, maybe) or a sculptured carpet where 80 percent of the tufts are cut, or what?

Anyhow, I expect the root of the problem is that either you don't have an agitating brush on your vaccuum cleaner or it's worn out. Normally, the agitating brush on a vaccuum cleaner will shake any loose fibers out of the carpet and suck them up before they get a chance to accumulate and form fur balls.

On Hoover upright vaccuum cleaners, you could buy replacement brushes for the rotating drum, but now they glue the brush pieces right into the drum and you have to buy a new rotating drum. You might also check that the height adjustment on your vaccuum cleaner is set properly so that the brushes are actually beating the carpet so that loose fibers will be shaken out of the carpet.

I really had no clear idea of what he meant by "bobbles" either, but since he put that term in quotes, I reasoned that Pebe didn't know the correct technical term, so he made up a word to describe what he was seeing on his carpet, and I imagined a bobble to look like a hair ball a cat might cough up, but only smaller, dry, and made out of carpet fibers.

carpet 'bobbles'
 

DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Mar 18, 3:57 pm, pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?

--
pebe

What is a "bobble"? What exactly is your wife "pulling off"?

According to the Mirriam-Webster online Dictionary.
2: a small ball of fabric; especially : one in a series used on an edging

carpet 'bobbles'
 

pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?





WD40 ?

Greg

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On Mar 18, 10:37*pm, gregz wrote:
pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?

WD40 ?

Greg

Only if the carpet is rustingg.

Yes, that's right. Tiny balls of material about 2 to 3mm dia. See this link for devices to remove woolen balls from sweaters etc. I could not think of another way to describe them.

bobble remover - Bing

80/20 carpet is a description used by the carpet shop for a mixed wool and fibre carpet. I assume it refers to the percentage of each material in the mix.

We used a cylinder cleaner without brushes until I found out about turbo brushes. We now use one of those but it does not help with the problem.

Pebe:

Apparantly, the correct term for those bobbles forming on a carpet or sweater is "pilling". This web page:

http://www.woolclassics.com/download...cteristics.pdf

claims that pilling occurs on loop pile carpets (like level loop and berbers) and is the result of the breaking or tearing of the fibers at the top of the loops caused by an abrasive acting on the carpet pile.

To my way of thinking, the only abrasive that could be acting on the carpet would be dirt embedded in the leather soles of your shoes, but more probably an old vaccuum cleaner rotating brush. Dirt can get embedded into plastic just the same way as it gets embedded into floor "wax" on hardwood or vinyl composition tile floors. When the plastic bristles of a vaccuum cleaner rotating brush get embedded with dirt, they can be abrasive, and that's what could be causing the fibers at the top of the carpet tufts to be breaking or getting torn.

So, again, I suspect your vaccuum cleaner's rotating brush.

Any vaccuum cleaner repair shop can replace the rotating brush, or replace the brush inserts in the rotating brush, or sell you the parts to do it yourself.

I think the cause was just normal wear and tear. It occurred before we used a brush on the cleaner. The cleaner's original head was just a suction pad. We changed to a turbo-brush thinking it would cure the problem, but it didn't.

carpet 'bobbles'
 

Hey, that's slick!

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"gregz" wrote in message
...

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?





WD40 ?

Greg

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On 3/19/2013 2:17 AM, pebe wrote:
nestork;3031835 Wrote:
I really had no clear idea of what he meant by "bobbles" either, but
since he put that term in quotes, I reasoned that Pebe didn't know the
correct technical term, so he made up a word to describe what he was
seeing on his carpet, and I imagined a bobble to look like a hair ball a
cat might cough up, but only smaller, dry, and made out of carpet
fibers.
Yes, that's right. Tiny balls of material about 2 to 3mm dia. See this
link for devices to remove woolen balls from sweaters etc. I could not
think of another way to describe them.

'bobble remover - Bing' (http://tinyurl.com/d977m3a)

80/20 carpet is a description used by the carpet shop for a mixed wool
and fibre carpet. I assume it refers to the percentage of each material
in the mix.

We used a cylinder cleaner without brushes until I found out about turbo
brushes. We now use one of those but it does not help with the problem.





Bobbles in the UK are what we call pills in the US.
Never heard of them on carpets but have heard on sweaters where best
solution apparently is shaving off.

Usually carpet construction is more responsible for wear than the fiber
mix. Pulling off defects may just increase them and cutting is better.

In a high wear area, you want a tight dense carpet construction such as
you might see in office buildings or hotel lobbies where a lot of people
cause wear and durability is important.

carpet 'bobbles'
 

pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?



Start wearing underwear. Sooner or later, dingle berries are bound to
come loose and fall into your carpet. As a result, you get bobbles.

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:00:54 -0400, willshak
wrote:

DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Mar 18, 3:57 pm, pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?

--
pebe

What is a "bobble"? What exactly is your wife "pulling off"?

According to the Mirriam-Webster online Dictionary.
2: a small ball of fabric; especially : one in a series used on an edging

That doesn't make much sense. Perhaps the OP was referring to
"pills", or "pilling".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_%28textile%29

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:22:55 -0400, "
wrote:

pebe wrote:
We have an 80/20 carpet in the hall and it's about 4 years old. After
initial wear the carpet pile flattened. That's no problem, but now the
surface has many 'bobbles' that the sunlight catches and they look
awful. My wife is constantly puling them off but it gets a tiresome
business.

Is there some preparation that can be sprayed on the carpet to prevent
bobbles reforming?



Start wearing underwear. Sooner or later, dingle berries are bound to
come loose and fall into your carpet. As a result, you get bobbles.

So, HomoGay, nothing better to do that impersonate me again? It's not
surprising but you aren't my type. what a loser

carpet 'bobbles'
 

On 3/19/2013 2:17 AM, pebe wrote:
nestork;3031835 Wrote:
I really had no clear idea of what he meant by "bobbles" either, but
since he put that term in quotes, I reasoned that Pebe didn't know the
correct technical term, so he made up a word to describe what he was
seeing on his carpet, and I imagined a bobble to look like a hair ball a
cat might cough up, but only smaller, dry, and made out of carpet
fibers.
Yes, that's right. Tiny balls of material about 2 to 3mm dia. See this
link for devices to remove woolen balls from sweaters etc. I could not
think of another way to describe them.

'bobble remover - Bing' (http://tinyurl.com/d977m3a)

80/20 carpet is a description used by the carpet shop for a mixed wool
and fibre carpet. I assume it refers to the percentage of each material
in the mix.

We used a cylinder cleaner without brushes until I found out about turbo
brushes. We now use one of those but it does not help with the problem.




I didn't know they still made wool carpet :o) I'd contact the carpet
company....may tell you it is "normal" (it sure seems so with wool
sweaters). Friction seems to aggravate the pilling (as with sweaters,
inside of sleeve rubs against other clothing)...so, is this in high
traffic areas? do y'all wear slippers with smooth soles? Pets?

I'd be inclined (not knowing what else to do) to dab the pills with duct
tape or brush with one of those short wire brushes used for pets.