Many people today, when faced with a choice of flooring, tend to steer away from carpet, even though it is generally the most comfortable type of floor. They do this because it can be stained or damaged so easily. Instead of a way to clean carpet, the best thing would just be a way to replace it. The growing floor would be installed by placing metal plates on the floor. Tracks would be installed under the plates for a robotic p carriage. The plates would contain hundreds of thousands of printed nozzles.
A touchscreen or other intelligent control device would allow the owner to select what to replace and when. A whole room's floor needn't be replaced for a small spill. The homeowner could simply select the area where the spill is.
When activated, the carriage would move under the floors to the area where carpet is to be replaced. The carriage would first use a heat gun to melt the polyester fibers, allowing them to flow easily out of the nozzles. A melted plastic paste, supplied by a hose, would be sprayed onto the plates and extruded though with a silicone squeegie. The process would be similar to silkscreen printing.
After replacing carpet, the user would have to use some sort of mowing vacuum to trim away the old carpet and ensure a smooth surface on the new.
A supporting machine in the basement would contain a large bin of polyester resin beads and enough seperate tanks of dye to mix and make any color the user wants. Individual colors of dye would be pumped to the printing carriage and resin beads would be conveyed pneaumatically.
The system is designed more for solid colors of carpet, but with some finagling of the nozzles, it is possbile to print patterns. Because of the squeegie, I do not forsee printing high resolution pictures.-- fogfreak, Jan 11 2006 A damn sight more expensive than replacing the carpet and there are probably a number of reasons that this would be difficult/impossible, but what do I care - it's splendidly halfbaked.-- wagster, Jan 11 2006 I would like to see something like that in a hotel. Sometimes you cant vaccuum everything out of the carpet so if the previous guest in that hotel room had some sort of foot disease it could very well be spread to you.-- Jscotty, Jan 11 2006 This idea was once done by oniony, before his account disappeared. It was made to complement his carpet mower.-- fridge duck, Jan 13 2006 +-- oniony, Mar 29 2006 Speak of the slightly late to the party devil.-- hidden truths, Mar 30 2006 It's always nice when the "deceased" makes a guest appearance at his friend's funeral after-party (+)-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 21 2007 halfbakery