Some carpet cleaners have multiple settings for the water flow. I don’t have any idea what machine/model you are using, but I know that I have had that issue in the past. If there’s an instruction book, it might help.
And here’s a link to the site with a tutorial and a guide of sorts, maybe it can help:
http://rent.rugdoctor.com/how-to-clean-carpets.php
With all these ladies getting Brazilians these days, I’m surprised there’s hardly much need for a Rug Doctor.
I’ve used them...be prepared to use everything a lot. You might consider using other similar cheaper carpet cleaner liquid. Although the rug doctor spot remover seems to work pretty good. You will be going back and forth refilling and mixing A LOT.
....AND, it takes time,meaning that lifting technique they suggest...... well takes it’s toll on your back. They work, but you have to work slowly
I thought you were looking for a good Gynecologist.
The attachments that they try to rent to you for an extra charge are not very good. I mean the ones that are supposed to do furniture and stairs. Save the three bucks. Don't rent them.
Buy carpet cleaning fluid at Wal-Mart or suchlike. The Rug Doctor fluid is too expensive. You don't need to use much -- maybe even less soap-to-water than they recommend, and they often recommend just a couple of ounces of cleaner to a gallon of water. Mix the cleanser with a bucket of the hottest water you can run from the tap and pour it into the Rug Doctor asap. I have a bucket that I think is 22 quarts and it fills the regular size Rug Doctor perfectly. (There is a larger-size wide Rug Doctor for large rooms.) Bissell O2 and Bissell OxyGen2 are pretty good cleansers.
If you have some major stains or very dirty high-traffic areas of the carpet, pre-treat them before you use Rug Doctor. Folex brand Instant Carpet Spot Remover is good. Get a stiff scrub brush and use a circular motion. If you have pet stains buy one of the special pet stain carpet products - they actually work remarkably well.
You can only use Rug Doctor to clean carpeted stairs if you're very strong and in good shape. You'll have to hold up the machine yourself while it aspirates out the dirt and water. You can try just putting in a little bit of the water to lower the weight, but it won't make that much difference. As I said above, the attachments for stairs and furniture are pretty much useless.
Vacuum thoroughly before you start. Vacuum all the carpets/rugs a couple of times. Clean the Rug Doctor filter regularly -- maybe every two or three times you fill Rug Doctor with soap and water. When you start, try to get the hang of using Rug Doctor -- you squirt the soap/water mixture on generously, then you vacuum it out thoroughly so that the carpet is only left slightly damp. This the beauty of Rug Doctor actually -- its powerful suction removes dirt effectively and leaves the carpet/rug almost dry. Some of the other posters talked about rinses. I never do that. Pre-treat the worst areas, use hot water with just barely enough soap, vacuum the dirty water out of there thoroughly, and you'll be walking on a clean rug in just a couple of hours.
Where I live Safeway and some other supermarket/big-box stores rent Rug Doctor, but I usually rent it from a local dry cleaner that closes on Sunday. I rent the machine Saturday night and don't have to return it until Monday morning.
Now that you’ve begun to use the Rug Doctor it’s probably too late for this, but it’s always a good idea to dry vacuum the carpet as well as you can before you start shampooing it. You can save money if you rented by the hour by vacuuming first, and also by pretreating bad stains with a spray type pretreatment and a brush. Turn your water heater to maximum temperature so you will have the hottest water available (turn it back when finished). Be sure your water softener has freshly regenerated if you use one. Then go get the Rug Doctor and shampoo away.
Add water to it and you make acid. Cut the PH before you use the rug Dr.
When she gets up, I can ask her what she uses, if you like.
Look the machine you rent over carefully. I used to rent them out, and know that people would just rent the machine to clean up a flooded basement after a sewage backup. They returned them in less than sanitary condition.
better idea . . .
Pull up all the carpet and put down rugs.
Carpets will never be clean. Just dirt and germ magnets.
On a budget, finish 18” of the floor around the edges of the rooms and roll out your carpets.
You could have them dry cleaned when needed, or just wack ‘em out in the sun on the line in the backyard. Looks real nice too.
The problem is that the Rug Doctor is state of the art carpet cleaning equipment circa 1950. If you must use it, use liquid laundry detergent (NOT CONCENTRATED!) at about half the recommended dosage. If it has been cleaned with a Rug Doctor previously, you might even skip the detergent, just use straight water. (I used to turn off the cleaning solution when cleaning up after the Doctor. Some people use so much detergent that it would foam up a Butler rig two years later.) Dry stroke (don't use the spray) about two or three times for each wet stroke. Put an ounce or two of liquid fabric softener (it is a de-foamer) in the recovery tank. A capful of fabric softener in a quart spray bottle is a good thing if you have spot cleaned with commercial products. Just spray on any foamy spots. If you need to put the furniture back before the carpet is dry, make sure you have some kind of barrier between the furniture legs and the carpet. Metal legs or feet will rust and some furniture stains will bleed into the carpet. We used to use two inch cardboard square for legged furniture and styrofoam blocks for flat pieces. Unstained wood blocks work well, too.
Why rent? You can buy a super Bissell at Wally World for $150.
I'm innocent I tell ya'!
Don’t put carpet down in the first place! My husband is a custom home builder and dirt trails behind him like the Peanuts character. Hardwood floors solve it and we use a wood burning stove at a house we have on the Chesapeake Bay and I know about the ash stuff.
Quickest way to ruin carpet is over wetting and left in cleaning solution that melds to the fibers to attract soil permanently ...in the long run these cost you far more.....and that my friend is what you will get from a rug doctor or portable gopher.
Pull up the carpeting and install hard-surface flooring. You can do it yourself. You can never really get carpeting clean.