Friday, November 9, 2012

How To Maintain Carpets

Like hard floors carpets require regular maintenance. The following is how this can be done.

Daily Maintenance:
Carpets need to be vacuumed daily. How often do you sweep a floor? How often do you wash your floor? Carpets require the same regular cleaning. Just because you can't see the dirt doesn't mean it's not there.

You have 2 choices for a vacuum.
1) Canister (includes backpack vacs). A canister vac uses suction to remove dirt from the carpet. Usually the vacuum in a canister will be much stronger than the vacuum on an upright. The lift on a good canister vac will be strong enough to remove the required particulates from the carpet. A canister is also versatile as it may be used on hard surfaces such as wood and tile. Maintenance is very minimal and power heads are available for those who feel it is required.

2) Uprights. These have been around for a long time and the basic principal is that you beat the carpet to lift the dust and then suck it. Vacuum motors on uprights are usually weak. Upright also require much more maintenance.

Weekly Maintenance:
Spot Cleaning. Using either a hydrogen peroxide spotter or other specialty spotter look for spots on carpeted areas. Spray the spotter on a clean white terry towel and dab spots out of carpet. Alternatively you may be able to use a spray and walk away product. Spray the spots and let them dry clean.

Semi Yearly Maintenance:
Low Moisture Cleaning. It is a good idea to at least once a year maintain your carpets with a low moisture cleaning. As you may deep scrub your floors several times a year, this process is the deep scrub for carpets. One common procedure is Encapsulation. Encapsulation uses a process where after vacuuming the carpet a product is applied with the help of a brush on either an extractor or buffer that will dry to a crystal around the remain dirt in the carpet. Once dry, vacuum the carpet and your carpets are cleaned.

Yearly:
Deep Extraction. This method is required yearly in most cases. Just like you strip and wax floors once a year your carpets required the same attention. Using hot water and pre-spray this gives your carpets the lift they need.

Tips:
- Canister vacs or backpack vacs are the tool of choice for carpet care.
- As with hard floor consider having 15' of matting at all entrances.
- In some cases you may substitute a full vacuum with a spot vacuum 2 days a week.

Phil-T
"Nothings too filthy for Phil-T"

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