Wax + Carpet am I doomed?

[kingbuxton]

Would anyone have a way to get candle wax out of a carpet? I can think of ways to melt it, but no way I can think of to get it to stick to something. It's made a right mess

[Raistlin]

Only thing I can suggest is to get it as cold as you can and then break it off.

---------- Post added at 21:33 ---------- Previous post was at 21:31 ----------

Some of these links contain information that may help, and contradict what I was thinking above, I'd ignore me if I were you

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-rem...rom-carpet.htm

http://www.doitproperly.co.uk/candle_wax.php

http://www.ehow.com/how_2587_remove-wax-carpet.html

This one has a video:

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-...-from-a-carpet

Remove as much as you can manually by scraping with a blunt blade & hoovering up the debris, then cover what remains with a cloth & run a warm iron over it - hopefully some of the melted wax will transfer to the cloth & can be lifted away.

You may need to repeat several times, rather than try to do it 'all at once'.

<edit> oops, beaten to it

[kingbuxton]

Only thing I can suggest is to get it as cold as you can and then break it off.

That's Ned Flanders method of getting gum out of a tash

Cheers for the links and replies.

[rogerdraig]

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-rem...rom-carpet.htm

http://www.ehow.com/how_2587_remove-wax-carpet.html

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-...-from-a-carpet

last ones quite a good vid

[Osem]

We've had this problem before and sorted it like this: get as much up as possible by breaking/scraping it off then use a warm iron ontop of loads of paper towel to first melt and soak up the excess wax. You'll probably be left with an oily mark but this can be removed using a gentle degreasing product and/or even a steamer but this will depend on the type of carpet you have.

[kingbuxton]

Ahhhhh, brown paper, that's the cheese. I am thinking the stuff you use when baking a cake. I know what I am doing this Sunday then.

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by homealone

Remove as much as you can manually by scraping with a blunt blade & hoovering up the debris, then cover what remains with a cloth & run a warm iron over it - hopefully some of the melted wax will transfer to the cloth & can be lifted away.

You may need to repeat several times, rather than try to do it 'all at once'.

<edit> oops, beaten to it

doesn't that carry the risk of melting the carpet?

[joglynne]

Originally Posted by kingbuxton

Ahhhhh, brown paper, that's the cheese. I am thinking the stuff you use when baking a cake. I know what I am doing this Sunday then.

You need proper brown wrapping paper which is very absorbent. Baking paper won't work as well as it is much thinner, being only used to stop your cakes from sticking to the tin, and will not protect your carpet from the heat of your iron which, to remove as much wax as possible, should be quite hot.

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by kingbuxton

Ahhhhh, brown paper, that's the cheese. I am thinking the stuff you use when baking a cake. I know what I am doing this Sunday then.

Actually you need absorbent paper.Paper towels are best and make sure the iron isn't too hot.

[joglynne]

LOL Maggy. I can see that paper towels will work but my method also definitely worked at Christmas getting candle wax out of my wool mix carpet.

The beauty of using the brown paper method is that you can see straight away when you have lifted some wax as the paper changes colour. If you keep using a clean area of the paper you won't risk pushing any melted wax further into the carpet pile.

[Osem]

It's easy to see how much wax has been lifted using paper towel since it becomes transluscent. You don't need a hot iron to melt wax so the best policy is to start with a warm iron and then gradually increase the temperature until you get to the right level. In our case a very large church candle fell over depositing a large amount of wax on our lounge carpet - an 80/20 wool mix. The above technique worked perfectly and there's no evidence of the stain now but you have to be careful to control the temperature for obvious reasons.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by joglynne

You need proper brown wrapping paper which is very absorbent. Baking paper won't work as well as it is much thinner, being only used to stop your cakes from sticking to the tin, and will not protect your carpet from the heat of your iron which, to remove as much wax as possible, should be quite hot.

thats what my old mum taught me

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by joglynne

LOL Maggy. I can see that paper towels will work but my method also definitely worked at Christmas getting candle wax out of my wool mix carpet.

The beauty of using the brown paper method is that you can see straight away when you have lifted some wax as the paper changes colour. If you keep using a clean area of the paper you won't risk pushing any melted wax further into the carpet pile.

Actually the advantage of brown paper is being thicker it's more likely to protect the carpet so you can have the iron a little warmer.

How about a compromise and use both?

[joglynne]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Actually the advantage of brown paper is being thicker it's more likely to protect the carpet so you can have the iron a little warmer.

How about a compromise and use both?

Agreed. I just used what I had to hand at the time and luckily it worked.

When I was on my hands and knees ironing the carpet I had flashbacks of my mother doing the very same thing after the candles on our Christmas tree had dripped on to her prized Axminster. Boy was the air ripe, after that we never had any lights on our tree. I can't believe we had lit candles on a pine tree, but it was quite a normal practice back then.