Fitted carpet cleaning in Antwerp (centre)
We clean the fitted carpets of offices, hotels and stairwells in Antwerp (centre) (2000), at night or at the weekend, so that work never has to stop.
- Postcode
- 2000 · 2018 · 2018
- From the workshop
- 46 km
- Residents
- 562,002
- Sector
- A12 / E19 northern axis — Antwerp and its inner ring
What the ground changes
Fitted carpets in Antwerp (centre)
A fitted carpet is washed in place, by machine: exactly what a hand-knotted rug cannot take.
Damp and water
The Scheldt is a tidal river and Antwerp is directly exposed to it. The Scheldekaaien project (2005-2030) is stabilising and raising more than 7 km of quays, from the Droogdokkeneiland in the north to Blue Gate in the south: the dyke rises to +9.25 m TAW in zones 1 and 2 of Blue Gate, 75 cm more than the current +8.50 m and about 90 cm more than the 1976 structure. The quay walls have been sliding towards the Scheldt since 1883, under the effect of the underlying clay and the pressure of the water table.
A fitted carpet that has taken in water has to be dealt with within forty-eight hours: beyond that, the mould starts from the substrate and not from the fibre.
The rug market
The diamond district runs around the central station along four streets: Pelikaanstraat, Rijfstraat, Hoveniersstraat and Schupstraat. 85% of the world's rough diamonds pass through this district every year. The Diamond Exchange goes back to the end of the nineteenth century, the Diamond Office was created in September 1944, and the rail link with Amsterdam existed as early as 1845. Over the past ten years or so, a large share of the wholesale trade has passed to the Indian Jain community.
A schedule of condition, a re-letting, a lease taken over: that is often the moment when the fitted carpet becomes urgent again.
The building stock
Zurenborg, straddling Antwerp and Berchem, was built between 1894 and 1906, at the height of Art Nouveau: Cogels-Osylei, Transvaalstraat and Waterloostraat form its core, with a mixture of Art Nouveau, neoclassical town houses, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance, neo-Greek and Tudor cottage. Many of the houses are listed. At the other extreme, on the Eilandje, the Montevideo pakhuizen were built in 1897 to the city's order by the municipal engineer Frans De Winter, in twelve months and for 331,000 francs, first for storing hides, then occupied from the 1950s by the British army — before their current conversion to housing.
On a bonded or tiled fitted carpet, the technique is not the one used on a knotted rug: here, hot water extraction is the right move.
A fitted carpet is a fixed covering: stretched over underlay, fully bonded, or laid as tiles. It cannot be rolled, immersed or spun. Washing therefore takes place on site, and the only way to get clean water into it and straight back out again is hot water extraction: the nozzle sprays the solution into the pile and takes it back up a few centimetres away, in the same movement.
On a hand-knotted oriental rug, that same movement would be a mistake. The foundation is cotton, the dyes are often vegetable, and water driven in under pressure goes down into the weft with no way of getting back out: the colours migrate, the foundation swells, and the rug buckles as it dries. A hand-knotted rug is washed by immersion in a bath, spun in a centrifuge and dried flat. A fitted carpet, never — its pile is short, its back all but watertight, and the water stays where it does its work.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
How long does a fitted carpet stay damp after washing?
That depends on the technique and the ventilation, not on the area. Encapsulation uses very little water and returns a surface to use quickly; hot water extraction takes longer. We choose the technique to suit your window, and we blow air across it until the end.
Can cleaning damage a fitted carpet?
Yes, in three ways: too much water reaching the substrate and lifting it, too alkaline a pH dulling a wool fibre, too aggressive a rotary brush opening up the pile. That is why we identify the fibre and the type of fitting before bringing out a machine.
You come up to Antwerp with a van: does the low-emission zone cause a problem for the collection?
No. Antwerp has been an LEZ since 1 February 2017 for the whole city inside the R1 ring road and the Linkeroever, but our van meets the access standards — and the tightening that was to come into force on 1 January 2026 has been dropped. The real point to watch lies elsewhere: since 1 August 2023, you can no longer park on the street in the historic core without a permit. So we set the collection on a loading and unloading window agreed in advance, which means you need to tell us the floor and whether or not there is a lift.
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