Carpet-cleaning basics: An average room takes about 1-2 hours. A whole house can take up to one day. You may use your carpet immediately, however, try to keep heavy traffic off damp carpet because it attracts dirt.

Nylon and wool carpets are dyeable. Polyester, acrylic and polypropylene carpets are not. Acid based dyes are translucent and therefore, carpet dyeing is not like painting over one color with a new one. The color in your carpet determines the color it can be dyed. For example if your carpet is red and a service professional can add yellow dye, red and yellow make orange, or if your carpet is blue and red dye is added, blue and red make purple. The existing color must be utilized, and an additional color or colors are added to reach your goal. White and beige carpets can be changed to just about any color. A true deep black can not be achieved, as the dyes are translucent. Always remember that you can only go darker. Color can't be taken out of your carpet then re-dyed.

There are two procedures widely used across the world for applying color to installed wall-to-wall carpeting:

1. Spraying the dye on with 100 to 500 pounds of pressure using a hand held wand fanning over carpet approximately 12 to 24 inches away from carpet. With this process, penetration is a problem when performing a total color change.

2. Applying dye with a rotary scrubber using a nylon or polyester bristle brush. Moving machine across the carpeting in an overlapping pattern carefully as not to streak or lease dark areas in the carpet. This process requires much more training and experience than spraying, however, with this process penetration normally is not a problem. You can expect very good penetration results with combining this process with a proper carrying agent (such as dye shampoo) added to the dye solution.

Keep in mind that not all stains can be removed. Bleached areas, whether caused by sunlight or liquid bleach, cannot really be addressed. In theory, a professional can re-dye those sections, but don't count on an exactly perfect color match.