When most people hear the word “drill,” their mind immediately thinks of power tools used for construction or other projects. Some people might think of “Dril,” the popular Twitter account with over a million followers. Most people don’t think about a tool for carpet cleaning.
A drill brush is exactly like a power drill, except instead of metal or masonry drill bits at the end, there’s a brush. Press the trigger, and you’ll effortlessly enjoy brushing power you can’t get manually.
Anyone who has ever used a food processor for food prep instead of relying on their blade can understand and appreciate the role a drill brush can play in cleaning. If you already have the inside scoop about the easiest way to get the worst stains out of your carpets and elsewhere in the home, perhaps you know about drill brushes. Please keep reading to delve a little deeper.
Carpets Can Get Very Dirty Very Quickly
Is your home a shoes-on kind of home, or do people take their shoes off upon entry? Society is divided on this question, and there’s no one right answer. But even the most fastidious shoes-off person tracks dirt in eventually, and once dirt anchors itself within a carpet’s fabric, getting it out is a challenge.
How many times have you seen someone standing on their balcony, beating a rug until there’s no more dust in the fibres? Well, this is impossible to do with a carpet that’s firmly attached to your floor. It might be possible to get stains out manually, but maybe not. You can drop some stain remover and put a little elbow grease into it with a paper towel, but nothing matches the power of a drill.
Drill bits can release dirt and debris that you don’t even realize is there. Carpets are a catch-all for things like dust mites, pet hair, pet urine (hopefully only pets?), insect feces (hopefully only insect?), bacteria, mould, insect husks, and more.
You may not even realize how dirty your carpet is getting because it gets dirtier so gradually, which is why the drill brush achieves such stunning results.
Professional Carpet Cleaning is Expensive
Before the invention of drill brushes, people found various ways to clean a carpet. They didn’t always work, and when they didn’t, they called a professional cleaner. Have you ever looked at the price of hiring someone to come to your home and use their gear to clean your carpet?
It’s vastly more expensive than buying drill brush attachments, which usually run between $20-30 online. Most pro carpet cleaners charge a pretty penny, and you need to speak to them to get a quote because they don’t always advertise their price per square foot on the site.
If you want independence from the cleaning industry, take matters into your own hand and get a drill brush.
Steps To Remember When Cleaning Your Carpet Using Drill Brushes
You can’t just clean a carpet with raw power, whether you’re using manual power or a drill. Just like you need to carefully pulse when using a food processor to get the food to the right consistency, using a drill brush is a combination of power and touch.
How you go about cleaning depends on the type of carpet and the nature of the stain. When removing pet hair from the carpet, use a low speed on your drill brush. Pet hair might get caught in a vacuum, but it’ll be easy to remove from the brush bristles once you turn it off because they come off in a clump all together.
The drill’s high-speed rotation plus the premium brushes can lift and extract spots from fabric or even upholstery. Polypropylene Makita drill brushes are available in different stiffnesses to handle carpets of various levels of durability. Soft brushes don’t always hold up as well on heavy-duty carpets.
Analyze the Stain and the Type of Drill Brush to Use
The solution for how to clean your carpets depends on the carpet and what needs to be cleaned. When using the drill brush to clean things like dirt from a carpet, you may not even need a cleaning solution. Sometimes the bristles moving so quickly is enough to jar loose whatever’s in there.
You can even take this approach when cleaning small carpets, such as the ones in your car. Remove them from the vehicle so the drill brush can easily access the ends of your carpet. You can even remove gum from carpets because the bristles work so effectively.
This scenario changes when there’s a proper stain. If anything can get a wine stain out of a white carpet, the drill brush can! Use a suitable cleaning solution (in many cases, a universal cleaner for carpet and upholstery will do) and a brush that’s the right size. For example, if it’s a low pile carpet, you may not need a super long brush. Using carpet cleaners for pets is a great idea if your furry friend leaves a stain somewhere, but the drill on its own should work wonders.
So long as you’re agitating the fibres and untangling them from the piles, DeWalt drill brushes can likely get the dirt out without needing a cleaning solution. There’s always a product that’s perfect for you, just find the right drill bit brushes suitable to the task.
Working the Drill Brush (and other tips and tricks)
Novices with power drills may want a couple of insider tips. Be careful not to press the trigger too hard, or the power brush may splatter cleaning solution or even dirt. It’s wise to drop the solution onto the carpet you’re cleaning and rub the brush in it before you turn on the drill, so there’s soap in the bristles and the power won’t make things sloppy.
The power brush can also clean more than just carpets! Stubborn bathrooms stains like grout between the tiles can be a nightmare to clean, taking time and energy on your hands and knees without necessarily getting great results.
To clean the grout, put the power brush on its side and turn it on gently so the sides of the bristles scrape at the grout. You can get bathroom grout white again as the drill wire brushes force the grime to rise out of the grout like a fountain in a display that is at once gross and deeply satisfying.
While the power drill gives you a lot of power to command, brush slowly at first. If you push the trigger down too hard, you’ll put excessive pressure on what you’re cleaning, and it could cause more harm than good.
You’ll have real sensitivity and feel when using a hand brush that people inexperienced with power drills may lack. Be careful to use the right level of power, and don’t overdo it.
It’s a good idea to change the direction on your Milwaukee drill brushes once in a while, so the bristles alternate moving from side to side. This won’t necessarily make the cleaning any more effective, but you’ll increase the drill brush’s lifetime.
Anybody who has ever spent time on their hands and knees scrubbing away at a carpet would surely salivate at the idea of harnessing the power of a drill to make the task easier. Live in a cleaner home without wasting so much time and energy and get drill brushing today.
