Rug Cleaning 101: Hand vs. Machine-Made

Hand-knotted, hand-made, tufted, machine woven? What does it all mean and why should I care?

A lot of time goes into making hand-knotted rugs. If for a moment you can picture a loom with threaded warp yarns from top to bottom. Tufts of wool are then tied around these warp yarns from side to side to create the knot.

Once a row has been completed a weft yarn will be threaded through the warp yarn to tighten the knots and start to build the foundation of the rug. As more and more rows are completed the rug slowly but surely is becoming the hand-made work of art that it truly is.

Small rugs (2-4 ft wide) usually can be made by one person in 2-3 months time. However some of the larger rugs (12-14 ft. wide) can take a team of three weavers sitting side-by-side, anywhere from 6 months to a year to complete.

The oldest surviving rug is called the “Pazyryk Carpet”, and it dates back about 2,500 years. However there is evidence that the art of rug making might be much older than that.

China, India, Iran (formerly Persia) and Pakistan are currently the biggest producers of hand knotted rugs.

Hand-tufted rugs, on the other hand, are created by pushing wool into a primary fabric, either by hand or with the use of a tufting gun. Once the pushing of the wool is completed, the back of the rug is glued in order to secure the tufts in place.

To give the rug a more finished look, the back is then covered-up with a jute or cotton cloth. The resulting rug can be very hard to tell apart from a hand-knotted rug, unless you know what to look for. The tell-tale sign is the back of the rug.

The biggest producers of tufted rugs are China and India.

Both type of rugs (hand knotted and hand tufted) are technically hand-made. However there is a big difference in how these rugs perform over the long-term. Whereas a hand knotted rug, with its solid foundation can stand-up to years and years of use, a hand (or gun) tufted rug won’t. Under high traffic conditions the glue that holds this type of rug together will start breaking down.

Machine-made rugs, as the name implies, are made with the use of machines. However even here, as with hand made rugs, there is a vast difference between a machine woven wool rug, or a manufactured olefin rug.

Machine woven rugs, such as Amercican made Karastan rugs, are of high quality and hard to distinguish from a hand knotted rug. In lower quality machine-made rugs threads are glued or looped onto a synthetic backing which cools as it hardens. Most often these machine-made rugs are created with acrylics and other chemically-processed materials.

Rugs knotted by hand tend to be extremely durable – so much so that they can last for generations. And when something is on the floor for that long, it can get really dirty. In fact, a recent study reports that a 9’ x 12’ oriental rug can hold up to 87 pounds of dry soil without even looking dirty. This is why proper care and cleaning is critical to the longevity of such a rug.

The proper method of cleaning for a rug is largely dictated by how a rug is made. Hand knotted rugs can be thoroughly dusted and washed to restore them back to “as new” condition. Even pet accidents and odor issues can almost always successfully be dealt with. However tufted rugs, because of their construction, provide some unique cleaning challenges.

Because of the vast differences in materials used, construction, after-market treatments, pre-existing conditions and the effects of cleaning on the texture of the face yarns, it’s important to work with a rug cleaning professional experienced in rug identification in order to avoid costly mistakes.

A seasoned professional will be able to identify a hand-knotted from a machine-made rug, wool from cotton and the myriad of potential cleaning problems each presents and advise you on best practices for the cleaning and repair of fine textiles.

The design is slowly taking shape

Can you tell how the various rugs are made?

Hand knotted, machine tufted, machine woven and hand tufted.

Eric Bollman is the owner of Haines & Cross based in Laguna Niguel. He specializes in professionally cleaning, repairing and restoring all styles of area rugs. For more information on rug cleaning, Eric welcomes calls at (949) 496-0935 or by e-mail to eric@orangecountyrugcleaning.com.

Restoring a broken rug

This Turkish rug was the unfortunate victim of a heavy desk. When a sink stopped draining and the faucet was left running water went everywhere. Eventually it ended up in the office with the rug and the heavy desk. Trapped underneath the desk the rug had nowhere to go.

All soaking wet it was just looking for somebody to gently remove it from underneath the desk and dry it. That’s not what happened. When the water damage techs showed up they started tugging at the rug – the rug didn’t appreciate it one bit and before they knew it they had one piece of the rug in their hands and the other piece was still stuck underneath the desk.

To make a long story a little bit shorter, Eric Ten Eyck from the CRDN network called for my assistance to see if the rug could be repaired and if it could, was going to be worth it. Considering the fact that there was ample sentimental value in that the rug was purchased over 40 years ago while the rug owner had lived in Turkey. There was also real value in that the rug has an approximate replacement value of about $4-6k. So, yes the rug can be repaired.

Torn Turkish Rug

Take a look at the before picture and in about 3-4 weeks I’ll post the after pictures to show the repaired rug.

How to tell if your rug is hand knotted

It’s no fun being an insurance adjuster

Yesterday I met with an insurance adjuster at the home of his client. He was there to evaluate the extent of the loss his clients had suffered due to a broken pipe and the resulting water damage. From the looks of it, it was a fairly small water loss. A pipe in the wall, shared between the kitchen and dining room, had leaked some water into the wall and onto the carpet in the dining room.

The reason I was invited was to look at a rug which had gotten wet from the leak and had bled according to the insured. As the loss had happened several days before, the rug was dry. With the insureds’ permission I carried the rug to a spot in their living room with better lighting and more space to lay the rug out. After unfolding the rug I expected to see a plethora of bled colors, however that was not the case. To the contrary, what I saw was a rug that was in near perfect shape.  

After consulting with the insured that I was looking at the right area, they mentioned that they had taken the rug to a rug gallery and had gotten a ”professional” appraisal of the rug. The appraisal consisted of a brief description of the rug in question. (Hand knotted, silk rug with a cotton foundation). It listed that the rug had color bleed all over and that the current value was $2000 and it’s replacement value was $8000.  After looking over the appraisal, I took another hard look at the rug and asked the insured to point out where they saw the color bleed. Their response was that they were not specialists themselves and were trusting the opinion of someone who was! And they made it clear that they felt that I was not a true specialist. 

Then the situation went from bad to worse. The insurance adjuster who had invited me to look at this rug and wanted my professional opinion if this rug was fixable, came to look at the rug as well. We both made a painstaking effort to find even the smallest, tiniest smidgen of color bleed. No success. By this time the insured was getting annoyed with us. The insurance adjuster tried to salvage the situation by making several different analogies of the situation we found ourselves in, however to no avail. When the talk shifted to “we’re done here, you’ll hear from our lawyer” I knew it was time for me to make a quit and quick exit. 

Almost always my clients come to me and trust my professional opinion about the cleaning and restoring of their rugs. This situation was unfamiliar to me and I hope to not have to encounter it again. It did make me feel sorry for insurance adjusters though.

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