CRI's Seal of Approval (SOA) Program

The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) has a proud and successful history of helping consumers deal with carpet mishaps. You know, the kind where the result winds up emblazoned on the brand new living room carpet -- as in pet stains or children’s spills and tracked-in soil or dinner accidents -- often serving as a signature reminder especially when such nasty stains aren't thoroughly and effectively cleaned. You see, we understand not only the investment put into a carpet, but also the ramifications of a carpet that “uglies out’’ long before its time is due. That's where the Seal of Approval Program comes into play.

Back in 2000, CRI put together a remarkable program which came to be known as The Green Label Vacuum Testing program to help consumers identify those vacuums which were best suited to keep carpet surfaces as clean as possible – without putting dust back into the air.

The program identifies vacuum cleaners that remove soil, contain dust within the filtration bag and the machine itself, and leave the carpet damage free as well as looking good.

That program has since transitioned into our Seal of Approval (SAO) family which includes a suite of testing protocols that assure consumers they are getting the best available products to maintain their carpets.

The SOA program includes tests for carpet spot removers, in-tank and pre-spray cleaning products as well as extractors and cleaning systems. And the cherry on top, is the list of SOA professional service providers who agree to use only SOA products in their work, thus giving consumers a much better chance of being satisfied with their carpet cleaning experience.

Now, one might wonder why such a program would concern the carpet industry to the point it would invest heavily into such a program. The answer is relatively simple: when carpet “uglies out” and that signature stain stays around throughout the life of the carpet, it isn’t the cleaning chemicals shouldering the blame, but rather the carpet itself. And, of course, we all know carpet cleaning products are not all created equal.

In fact, the litmus test which proved we were heading down the right path occurred during some early testing data of cleaning products purchased off the shelf.

That's right. A majority of the products CRI tested came back not only ineffective, but most of them actually did not clean as well as water. And some even showed a propensity to hurry up the carpet’s demise by promoting re-soiling. Some chemicals left behind on the carpet can either strip the carpet of some of its stain resistant properties or even worse become a magnet for soil resulting in those mystery stains that come back in a manner of days.

One of the precursors to entering into the SOA foray were several surveys CRI put together to gauge the attitudes of consumers toward carpet. We surveyed residential consumers, government specifiers, architects and designers, as well as facility mangers across several market segments. The one thing we found most puzzling was that the number one problem these folks had with their carpet purchases all had to do with cleaning and maintaining them.

Carpet is made today to be more stain and soil resistant than ever before. Once we started testing carpet cleaning products and found out how bad some of them really were, we knew that certifying good carpet cleaning products was the right thing to do.

And it's knowledge that we all benefit from: the carpet industry, carpet consumers, and carpet cleaning chemical manufacturers as well. In fact, when we brought carpet cleaning manufacturers together and introduced this new testing program, we heard a general consensus that it was a good program and would go a long way in making their products and services better. It would also give them a way to distinguish themselves in the marketplace as using only superior carpet cleaning products that had passed SOA tests.

The carpet industry enthusiastically supports the program - several carpet mills have even tied their warranties to the use of SOA products. And that makes sense. The car industry doesn’t sell you a car, and then tell you not maintain it or change the oil because their warranty will take care of it.

Once cleaning chemicals were introduced to the SOA program it was only a matter of time before we started testing deep cleaning extractors and systems. The one key difference in the extractor testing is the ability to measure soil removal as well water retrieval. In today’s fast-paced world, people can’t expect to sit around for a day while carpet dries. And too much water left in a carpet can lead to mold and/or mildew problems.

Our good friends at NASA helped us by providing a technology called x-ray fluorescence (XRF), a sophisticated testing method that measures the precise amount of soil removed from carpet. XRF was developed by private industry and enhanced by NASA for the Space Shuttle program and can measure how much soil is removed from a carpet down the fourth decimal point. [Read the CRI Fact Sheet describing How Space Technology Was Adapted for Carpet Cleaning."

Since we launched the SOA program in 2004, we have made believers of a lot of people and several states specify the use of SOA products in their purchasing agreements. We plan to continue spreading the word that only the very best products pass our SOA tests, thereby ensuring that your carpet purchase and ensuing carpet cleaning program are the best experience possible.

~ James


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