Carpet cleaning in Burnham

Burnham sits west of Slough, between it and Maidenhead, and it is a Buckinghamshire village rather than part of the borough. The post town is still Slough and the postcode SL1, while the phone numbers start 01628, the Maidenhead code. The parish runs beyond the High Street to Lent Rise, Hitcham and East Burnham, and the room prices are the same as in town.

Mud from the Beeches

Burnham Beeches, 540 acres of ancient woodland, lies north of the village, and a dog walked there comes home with wet woodland soil and crushed leaves on its paws, as do the boots that went with it. The instinct is to go at a muddy print straight away with a damp cloth. Don’t. Rubbing wet mud pushes it down into the pile and spreads it wider. Let it dry hard, break it up with your fingers and vacuum it out, and what is left is a far smaller mark for us to rinse. Wet leaves pressed into a pale carpet can leave a brown, tea-coloured patch too, and a pre-spray usually shifts it.

Salt on the wine

The other cure we meet here is salt poured on spilt red wine. It soaks up a little of the liquid and leaves salt in the fibre, and salt pulls moisture out of the air, so a damp, grey ring shows up weeks later where dirt has stuck to it. Blot the spill with a white cloth, dab it with a little cold water, blot again and leave it alone. A fresh wine mark that nobody has scrubbed is one of the easier jobs we get.

Carpets lived on for years

Most homes in Burnham are owned rather than let, so the carpets we see have often been down a long time. The stairs show it first: the front edge of each tread wears, and the strip inside the front door goes flat. We rinse the soil out of both. Flattened pile is wear, and we point it out before starting. The hall, stairs and landing together are £72 (£22, £41 and £9). Add a living room at £43 and two bedrooms at £36 each, and the total is £187.

Finding you

Burnham station, on the Elizabeth line, is about half a mile south of the village and on the Slough side of the boundary, so if you say you are near the station we will ask which side. Around the High Street, where many buildings date from the 18th and 19th centuries, give us the road and tell us whether there is anywhere off the street for the van. A bay we have to pay for goes on the bill at cost.

The machine and the method are on the carpet cleaning page, older marks are dealt with under stain removal, and rugs have their own page. Back towards town, Cippenham is the nearest part of Slough, and Farnham Royal is the other Buckinghamshire village on our list.