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Carpet cleaning is not only essential for your health, but it is also one of the top ways to improve the appearance of your home. Dingy and stained carpets just look plain gross and can affect the overall feel of the space. Have you ever walked into someone else’s home and instantly felt disgusted? It’s not a feeling anyone wants their home to give off.
Not to mention, if your carpets are not well taken care of, dirt and allergens are likely to cause respiratory problems in everyone you love.
To avoid potential issues like these, you have to pay attention to what kind of carpet cleaning methods you use and how often you use them. Here are several carpet cleaning methods that can help your carpet last longer.
Vacuuming Your Carpet
Before you start vacuuming it’s a good idea to prep the room first. Pick up any trash, toys and any other objects that will block the vacuum cleaner from doing its job. This includes small items like coins that can damage the vacuum internally.
Dust windowsills, furniture, baseboards, and blinds. This way once you start vacuuming you’ll be picking up that extra dust too!
If you can’t move furniture, feel free to use a cranny extension to clean under couches and other larger pieces of furniture. Also, remember to vacuum vertically and horizontally to clean every part of the fiber.
For the best results, vacuum your carpet as often as you can.
Steam Cleaning
For really tough stains, your carpets will need to be steam cleaned. After all, your carpets can become quite a cozy home for allergens, dust mites, bacteria, and germs if they are not thoroughly cleaned. If you aren’t careful, these nasty toxins can affect the health of your family.
Remember a vacuum can only suck out so many pollutants, dust, and debris. While steam cleaning involves super hot water that actually breaks down the buildup of contaminants. Plus really hot water can kill germs and bacteria too!
Hot Water Extraction
Hot water extraction is a similar carpet cleaning method as steam cleaning. The main difference is that the water is not nearly as hot with hot water extraction compared to steam cleaning. To produce steam the water has to be really hot.
Also, hot water extraction typically involves rinsing whereas steam cleaning does not.
Typically, the process involves high-pressure tools, hot water, and cleaning agents. Once things are loosened up, a powerful vacuum is used to remove any debris and stains from your carpets. This is the method most professional carpet cleaning companies use.
Air Duct Cleaning
If you want your home to have a truly healthy atmosphere, carpet cleaning should not be the only thing on your list. What circulates all the air in your house — whether it’s clean air or dirty, dusty air? The air ducts.
Air duct cleaning requires powerful vacuums to suck out debris and dust or worse things like harmful microorganisms (mold spores, pollen, bacteria, pet dander, etc.).
After cleaning your air ducts and carpets, your home will be a much more comfortable environment for you and your family — something that is a must, right?
Krystle Cook – the creator of Home Jobs by MOM – put her psychology degree on a shelf and dived into a pile of diapers and dishes instead. She is a wife and mother to two rambunctious boys, sweating it out in her Texas hometown. She loves cooking, DIY home projects, and family fun activities.
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With a cat, and most the house carpet, it really could use some refreshing this summer.
I know what you mean, we have four cats. Having a robot vacuum really helps with the hair!
These are great tips. I vacuum daily and we had our carpets steam clean but I have light colored carpet that shows EVERYTHING. I need to use my carpet cleaner this week on high traffic areas.
I hate carpets that show everything too. Just like I hate dark hardwoods that show every single cat hair lol.
Carpet cleaning can really be a hassle. That’s why I chose to go with hardwood and area rugs which is so much easier to manage. Thanks for the tips which will come in handy for those rugs!
We actually in the middle of changing three bedrooms to hardwood right now. My son’s carpet was a lost cause lol