Spring is right around the corner, and it’s a great time to clean your carpets. Here are some spring cleaning tips for your carpet, courtesy of A Personal Touch Carpet Cleaning.
Treat Your Carpet to a Deep Clean
Over the course of a winter, your carpet will have accrued months’ worth of germs, dirt, hair, and body oil. A deep clean is what your carpet needs in order to look brand-new again just in time for warmer weather. But before you undertake a wall-to-wall shampooing of your carpet, test the carpet cleaning machine and cleaning solution in a small, out-of-the-way area to confirm that they won’t discolor your carpet or cause the dyes to run.
After your test run, move your furniture only slightly from its current position and place a small square of wax paper under all furniture legs. This wax paper will not only keep the legs dry, it will also protect your carpet while it dries. During or immediately after the deep clean is finished, open your windows to accelerate the drying process, which will take at least a day and maybe longer, depending on carpet size, outside temperature, etc.
Consider a Steam Cleaner
A Colorado winter can leave many carpets looking worse for the wear. Your first instinct might be to plug in your vacuum and go to work, but even the best vacuums will have a hard time dislodging dirt and grime that’s accrued uninterrupted for three or four months straight. In these cases you need something stronger, like a steam cleaner. These machines have no trouble cleaning dirty areas, lifting out stains, and making carpets look brand-new again. Steam cleaners work with specific detergent types, so make sure you have the right detergent on-hand before beginning.
While steam-cleaning a carpet is highly effective, it’s a time-consuming process that can also be quite loud. Also, steam cleaners are much heavier than ordinary vacuum cleaners, a fact which will likely see you needing to take a break every so often – especially when you factor in the need to empty the cleaner’s dirty water reservoir periodically. Moreover, the intensity with which a steam cleaner “attacks” your carpet’s dirt and stains can render the carpet very damp and necessitate a significant amount of drying time. The bottom line is, if you want to steam-clean your carpet, set aside a considerable amount of time for the project. And if you have kids, you might want to see them off to grandma and grandpa’s house for a couple of days so that you have the entire house (and carpet) to yourself.
What to do About Rugs
Unlike carpets, rugs don’t require annual/biannual cleaning. In fact, you can go 4 – 5 years without thoroughly cleaning a rug – up to 10 years for a rug that isn’t tread upon much. Stains can be removed with household items like club soda, but any dye or acid-based stains (coffee, red wine, soda pop, etc.) should be addressed straightaway. The key with rugs is that you don’t want to over-clean them, as this exacerbates wear and tear.
At A Personal Touch Carpet Cleaning, prepping carpets for spring is one of our many expert carpet cleaning services near Littleton. Contact us online today for a free quote.
