Rugs, Carpets and Carpeting - wax in carpet

I am vacating my apartment tomorrow and will be doing the final cleanup. I however have some wax (white,clear) that had dripped fairly extensively onto the dining room carpet (ugly tan berber carpet). sp? Anyways, what is the best way to remove the wax and not destroy the carpet. I have used ice in the past but have not had a ton of luck. Any ideas would be a huge help and I appreciate the last minute stress-like timing to do it to. Peace: e3 - spamman

Take an iron on medium heat, no steam, and lay a paper towel over the wax. Press and repeat moving the paper towel so that a clean area is over the wax. Do this until the wax is out of the carpet.

I had this happen a few years ago at my mom's. I was moving a red candle, spilled wax on her imported rug. I was devasted and so was she. A friend mentioned this, and it works! I also had to do it again recently when a purple candle fell over and spilled wax on my blue carpet. Once again, it worked!

Hope this helps! Good luck in your move, may you find happiness in your new place!

Kay

Ps. Since it is Berber and the texture is a little different, if the paper towel doesn't work in the 'crevices/loops' you may want to try using a thin washrag or handtowel (stains them however, so don't use a good one) and use the tip of the iron to get down in there. A paper towel may tear while 'nosing' down in between the loops. You may need to slightly turn up the heat on the iron, but not much, when using the thicker material, or hold it down longer to allow the heat to penetrate the fabric, and then heat the wax underneath.

K.

Although the warm iron method is frequently recommended, there have been forum posts that have reported melted carpet as well as the setting of colored candle dyes into fibers.

A safer method that is recommended is to put ice in a baggie and hold on wax to harden and then scrape excess away with spoon. Vacuum up loose wax. Remove wax residues with solvent cleaner. Rubbing alcohol typically is quite effective, but denatured alcohol or dry cleaning fluid, stronger solvents, can be used. Always blot carpet stains from outside toward the middle with a white cloth. Do not rub.

I'm glad that you told me this, too. I have always tried to be careful when using this method so that I don't melt the carpet. My daughter tried this once in her room and needless to say I had a 'hairy' iron and a ruined place on the carpet.

I had neglected to mention that you work on any stain from the outside in so that it doesn't spread.

Thanks!

Kay

Thanks for the suggestions all. I am going to assume that the dense nature of the burber (sp?) carpet allows for a higher melting temp. I did the iron method on setting 3 of 10 and moved it in a slow circular fashion over the spot while slowly sliding the paper towel (heavy duty type) out. I did this for approx. 3 minutes per thick wax pile and it worked AWESOME. The carpet looks brand new in the spot where I had some wicked heavy wax. To get the final stuff deeper down in the folds, I left the setting on 3, held it on 2 layers of paper towel for approx. 6 seconds and then removed the iron and quickly used a wad of paper towels to blot/wick the wax up.

I appreciate all suggestions. The iron method was fast, safe (at low heat) and very effective. Maybe you could do a "tech" write up on it or something. Maybe enter it into a do-it-yourself type of magazine and see if they post it.

I have done the ice method in the past and it is effective however took me much more time and I had have very little of that. Peace: e3 - spamman