How to be a hero

I did a carpet cleaning job yesterday for a tenant moving to Arizona (Military move) It was a two story house with medium brown nylon shag carpet (Upstairs and stairs only). His wife had been industriously cleaning up after the dog and left big orange bleach spots all over the place. Some were as big as a dinner plate. After I cleaned they stood out like a sore thumb. He was between a rock and a hard place that's for sure. I offered to attempt a spot dye in hopes he wouldn't be stuck with replacing the carpet. After mixing up a spray bottle of blue dye, I went to work. An hour and a half later the orange spots were gone. He was relieved to say the least and I walked away with $520 in cash for both the cleaning and spot dye job. Not bad for less than three hours work.

That is the thing about bleach spots, once you introduce water they grow in size until you end up with "dinner plates" until they get neutralized.

Sounds like you certainly made a friend on that one.

So you keep adding the blue dye on the bleach spot until you get a close match? What if add too much you carry another dye to bring it back?

Mo,

The key is start light and add more color. If you use too much a dye prep additive can be used to lighten the color. I took a two day color repair course in LA many moons ago. With the course comes an extensive dye kit. All the colors you can think of. I end up using red or blue most of the time.

Rainbow Rider wrote:Mo,

The key is start light and add more color. If you use too much a dye prep additive can be used to lighten the color. I took a two day color repair course in LA many moons ago. With the course comes an extensive dye kit. All the colors you can think of. I end up using red or blue most of the time.

I think I still have my dye kit and the color match binder with the slides.....never did use it.

Interesting, I'm certified in color repair but never used my skills, I only took the class to extend my iicrc certification and didn't want to take a class I already took.
I need to get some dye kit and start offering the service soon for that kind of money.

I was taught carpet dying long time ago when I worked for Berry/ZZZzzzzzz Best, but was really never impressed with the results, and especially how fast it faded (in a year it looked like total crap), so I was never a fan. I just couldn't provide that service to my customers and feel good about it. But like I said that was long ago, so maybe the dyes have improved and that isn't a problem anymore?

I've about perfected my own version of small spot dying that works well with some practice, and the entire rainbow of colors Sharpies come in. Of course it isn't practical for "dinner plate sized" spots (that's a carpet repair for me), but I can usually kill the lil drips and a bit bigger!

Davey,

You're right about the fast fading. I have to re-dye the cheapo nylon carpet in our living room about once a year due to the amount of light streaming in the multiple sliding glass doors. Never tried sharpies.