Hey y'all, I'm making the transition from book learnin' to carpet cleaning experience.  I still lack a bit of confidence with what I'm doing, so I'm glad this group is here.

So here's the customer quiz:

Customer says, "We just moved in and my wife steam cleaned the carpets [I believe with one of those supermarket cleaners] and on the berber downstairs, a big brown stain has reappeared."

I gave him a bit of a spiel, and I'm going to give him an estimate when I see him next week. But would the group care to diagnose this and prescribe a cure?

This is a common problem especially when you combine lack of experience with a berber carpet. For the sake of this argument I am going to assume that you are dealing with a synthetic (probably olefin)

The real key to cleaning a berber is to be in control of your drying! There are several ways you can accomplsh this.

1. Make vacuum passes in both directions to account for the differences in pile height.

2. Employ the use of blowers / fans or whatever else you can move larger amounts of air with. This will cause the carpet to dry faster.

3. After extraction cleaning, go over the area with a rotary machine and dry bonnet. This will absorb the excess moisture and once again decrease the dry time

i am sure others may have other suggestions but just make sure you dry the carpet as fast as you can!. Hope this helps

Sounds like it was over wet ...or was wet for along time...

from your description it must be browning......There  are a few ways you could tackle this one...

1)brown out

2) textile rinse

3) haitian cotton

I'd run any one of these through the chemical feed..

an air mover would be nice, to move the air around the basement...at $50 rental to the customer over night

Jim is right on the money. Most berber carpets are made of olefin fiber. Olefin holds almost no moisture, in other words the cleaning solution accumulates at the base of the fiber after multiple passes, the solution then mixes with the left over stain or dirt at the base of the fiber and through the drying process wicks back up to the top of the fibers and shows as a stain.

Reclean and then use  the technique Jim described. After all Jim is Mr. Industry Guru.

 or you can use stain magic or spray with a little urin spot remover these act as an oxidizer

have a great day