carpet Archives - Neil Turner's Blog

Bradford Flower Carpet

Bradford may no longer be UK City of Culture, but that doesn’t mean that cultural events aren’t still happening in Bradford. On Friday, on my way into work, I had a quick peek at the flower carpet in Centenary Square, which was made up of over 300,000 flowers and put together by volunteers. Hence the photo above this blog post.

Sadly, as flowers don’t last forever, the carpet was dismantled yesterday. Quite how many more cultural events we’ll have in Bradford remains to be seen, as the local authority have redirected £400,000 of culture funding to re-opening a tip near Keighley.

Health update

Last month’s health update warranted a full blog post, but this time I’m just doing a couple of paragraphs. I did have another minor seizure this month, making it number four. Like the previous two, this happened at bedtime, whilst already in bed, and seemingly resulted in no ill effects apart from me having bitten my tongue. I had forgotten to take my Levetiracetam in the morning, so I’m putting it down to that. As a precaution, I have a strip of Levetiracetam in my work bag now, and so far there’s been no repeat.

I’ve had some more blood tests, following my Osteopenia diagnosis, and I’m now having weekly physiotherapy sessions along with additional exercises. My mobility continues to improve, but I still need assistance with showering, and some actions like getting dressed and putting a backpack on still have to be done in a rather ungraceful way.

Fuel prices

Although I’m not driving at the moment (and that latest seizure has reset the 12 month timer until I can drive again), I’m becoming increasingly glad that we ditched our diesel car for an electric one. As I write this, the price of basic diesel at our local petrol station has broken the £2 per litre mark – for Americans reading this, that’s more than $10 per gallon at current exchange rates. For premium diesel, which we were recommended to use every other time we refuelled, that’s now £2.16 per litre. A full tank would therefore cost close to £130.

Meanwhile, when we charge our electric car at home (which we do the majority of the time), our electricity prices are fixed at 24p per kWh until August 2027. And, we can use some of the energy from our solar panels and battery to lower this further, along with Weekend Happy Hours from our energy supplier. A full charge costs about £6 and offers around 150 miles of range, compared to over £100 for a full tank of diesel in our old car, which would give around 400 miles of range.

Of course, the fact that most lorries use diesel is going to have a knock-on effect with prices in shops, as delivery costs go up. So, the sooner we can get away from fossil fuels and switch to more sustainable sources of energy, the better.

On Wednesday, we will finally give back the keys to the flat that we’ve rented for the past four-and-a-half years. As with most tenancy agreements, we’re required to give the flat back in a clean, tidy state, and so we spent most of Saturday cleaning.

Whilst we had vacuumed the carpets… occasionally in that time, at no point had they been properly cleaned since we moved in. So, we hired a carpet cleaning machine.

Hiring a Rug Doctor

Our local Tesco allows you to rent Rug Doctor machines: £23 for 24 hours, or £29 for 48 hours. You have to book in advance, although the night before is fine, and you can do it online or by phone. The rental charge is paid upfront, and in return for your fee you get an email with a code and locker number at the location selected.

When you go to pick up the machine, you find the Rug Doctor display, open the locker with the code given, and collect the machine, a handheld tool for stairs and corners, and an instruction book. You also need to buy the detergent at this point which you pay for at the checkouts; it’s £10 for a bottle that does 1-2 rooms, £15 for a bottle that does 3-4 rooms, and a larger £20 bottle.

Using the Rug Doctor

The Rug Doctor machine is quite heavy and bulky, and although it’s quite easier to move on flat surfaces, good luck getting it up stairs. However, it does the job well – you can see the difference in the photo (the light-coloured bits have been treated). It works by spraying the detergent, mixed with water, on the carpet and then brushing it. It also incorporates a vacuum to suck up the dirt. You end up with a tank full of dirty water to flush away.

It’s quite quick – you can probably do most rooms in about 20 minutes, although we found that our carpets needed two treatments as they were particularly mucky. And you will need a lot of warm water – the Rug Doctor machine requires regular top-ups and we probably went through at least 20 litres of water.

Because we had the machine for 24 hours, we also had time yesterday to clean some of the carpets in the new house. These were cleaned in the summer by the previous owner before we moved in, but they’ve ended up mucky thanks to all of the disruptive renovation work we’ve had done since. Although the carpets have been vacuumed several times, I was surprised just how much muck came out after just a few months. As an asthmatic, I’m supposed to minimise my exposure to dust and yet there was still plenty in the carpets that our vacuum cleaner couldn’t remove.

Being able to get the machine from a local supermarket was really helpful, as supermarkets tend to be open long hours and at weekends. Our local hire centre, for example, is only open until 5pm (no good for us as we’re not home by then) and is shut at weekends, so we’d have to rent their machines for longer. Although we rented ours from Tesco, it looks like they’re available at some Asda supermarkets as well.

I was impressed by the Rug Doctor – it was quick, and the results were great. Hopefully the landlord will agree when we give the keys back this week.

For those who don’t get the reference in this blog post’s title, have a YouTube video.

Unblogged September

Bradford Flower Carpet

Health update

Fuel prices

Hey, Rug Doctor, give us the magic words!

Hiring a Rug Doctor

Using the Rug Doctor