Stained Carpet: Replace or Dye?

LESLIE: Ron in Alaska, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

RON: Hey, I have a big problem with my home carpet.

TOM: OK.

LESLIE: OK.

RON: You know, the main trail ways and our hallways and right by the little eating nook that we have in our kitchen. We’ve wanted to change our carpet out but it’s anywhere from $5,500 to $8,900 and I need something that will take up stains out of carpet so that I don’t have to replace my whole doggone house worth of carpet.

TOM: Have you thought about just renting a carpet cleaner or kind of doing it professionally?

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yeah, like a steam cleaner.

RON: We have steam-cleaned that stuff four or five times ourselves at least.

TOM: Well, if you’ve done that – I hate to tell you but if you’ve done that …

LESLIE: That stain is set in there then.

TOM: … there’s no stain to remove. You’re looking at probably a discoloration that could be the result of whatever spilled on there causing a chemical reaction that has physically changed the color of that carpet fiber itself.

RON: Yes.

TOM: There’s nothing on top of it that you can pull off of it. You understand what I mean?

RON: So do you have any ideas to, you know …

TOM: How about – Leslie, how about redying the carpet?

LESLIE: Yeah. There are kits available on the market. There are even spot dye kits where you can try to match the existing color of your carpet and just sort of work on specific stain areas. I think, for you, the best bet is probably to just redye the entire carpet a different color. I …

RON: OK, where do you buy dye from? Where do you get that kind of thing from?

LESLIE: There’s a website called Americolor Dyes and it’s A-m-e-r-i-c-o-l-o-rDyes.com; Americolor Dyes.

RON: OK.

LESLIE: You can find kits; you can find pens; you can find spot-dying kits. They’ll give you all the instructions for it. I would say try it in one room first, just to see how you like the results and make sure that you’re happy with it before you sort of tackle the entire first floor. You know, worse comes to worse, you’ve at least changed it for a little while longer.

RON: OK.

TOM: And Ron, remember; be careful applying that stuff. There’s a reason they call it dye.

LESLIE: Yeah.

TOM: (chuckling) OK?

RON: Yes. Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Ron. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.