For the past 20 years, Cerro resident Steven Ortega has operated his business, Majestic Carpet Cleaning. A lifelong resident of Cerro, he offers carpet cleaning services throughout northern Taos County as well as Colfax County. He is certified in carpet cleaning and water damage remediation, and is the owner and sole employee at Majestic Carpet Cleaning.
Ortega services residential households as well as commercial sites, but most of his clientele is residential. “A lot of it is people with second homes or rentals, people that rent [out] their homes. Some of the lodges up in Red River, I do some of their units for them as well… I’ve built up a pretty regular clientele,” said Ortega in an interview with Questa del Rio News on March 14.

According to Ortega, many carpet cleaners also perform services related to water damage remediation and emergency water extraction because much of the equipment needed is similar. Over his twenty years as a business owner, Ortega has also invested in drying equipment like dehumidifiers and turbo dryers. “I would say about 99% of all the jobs I do for water damage are insurance claims,” he explains.

Each cleaning job is slightly different, depending on the location, so he first measures the amount of moisture in the air and the temperature: such measurements have to be below a specific point before Ortega can use his equipment.

The Questa Del Rio News inquired into Majestic Carpet Cleaning’s average number of clients daily, Ortega explained that that number is difficult to determine in such a rural area, especially in the winter months. Spring through fall, he’s busy almost every day. The rest of the year, he can go one or two weeks without getting a single call, the slowest season being in winter, between Thanksgiving and the end of March.
Ortega told us that it’s difficult for him to expand beyond the Enchanted Circle service area, because that would be far for the company’s sole employee to travel, especially when gas prices are high. Sometimes he goes to Angel Fire, but most of the time he stays in the Questa/Red River area. As his carpet cleaning machine also runs on gas, if gas prices rise to as high as seven dollars per gallon, he may have to do something to offset that rise in the cost of fuel.

He utilizes what’s called a truck-mounted machine, which has to be installed in the van with a forklift, as it’s very heavy. A fuel line feeds down to his fuel tank in the van, so it has its own separate motor. “It’s a pretty powerful system,” he says. The Questa Del Rio News asked if a transition to an electric vehicle might be an option for Ortega. “Probably not, at this time. The only reason is that I don’t think the carpet cleaning industry or the manufacturers of carpet cleaning equipment have even thought that far!”
The machine uses steam power to clean and Ortega usually keeps the water temperature at about 210 degrees. The process works with an external water source like a hydrant or a household hose outlet and a hose, the water flows through two heating exchangers inside the machine, and raises the temperature of the water. Ortega pre-treats each carpet with a cleaning solution before applying the rinse and extraction process with a trigger mechanism, a “carpet wand.”

The cost of a cleaning from Majestic Carpet Cleaning varies but Ortega approximated a price range of 45 to 50 cents per square foot. Stairs are priced a little differently, depending on the linear foot of the stairway. Area rugs are priced differently depending on whether they’re of natural fibers or synthetic fibers. “Natural fibers are going to cost you more than synthetic because a synthetic [rug] you can essentially wet it and it’s not going to get damaged or ruined… Typically with a synthetic area rug I can usually clean it on site, but typically with a more expensive wool rug that are hand-dyed, I usually take those with me so there’s a trip charge associated with that.”

Ortega told us that he sometimes has help from family and volunteers, but most of the time the business is just him. Interested in getting your carpets or water damage repaired by Majestic Carpet Cleaning? Contact Steven Ortega at (575) 770-5417 or stevenortega@yahoo.com or visit https://majesticcarpetcleaningnm.com/