28 May Care Tips|Extending the Life of Your Carpet

You’ve just had beautiful new carpet installed and can’t believe the fantastic effects it has had on the overall appeal of the rest of your home! The following basic carpet care tips will help you keep it looking as fresh and new as the day you had it installed.

1. Vacuuming your carpet at a minimum of once a week is crucial when it comes to keeping your carpet looking great and vacuum your high traffic areas even more often then that. Taking the time to vacuum frequently will extend the life of your carpet by avoiding an accumulation of gritty dust and debris that will damage carpet fibers. In addition, every month or so use your vacuum’s crevice tool and clean around the baseboards and other tough to reach places. Keep in mind that just a quick pass over the carpet with your vacuum isn’t enough. Go over every area of carpeting a few times, slowly, to allow the suction to get rid of all the ground in dirt and dust. Pay extra attention to heavy traffic areas, using criss cross patterns and overlapping strokes.

2. The warmer months bring out a variety of odors that have been hiding in your carpet. Luckily, there’s an easy and non-toxic solution to the problem; baking soda! Baking soda literally absorbs odor from just about everything all the way from refrigerators, cat boxes and more importantly, it works great on carpet. All you need to do is liberally sprinkle it on the carpet, leave in on over night if possible (the longer the better) followed by sweeping up the largest amounts of baking soda than vacuuming up the rest.

3. Regardless of what you use to spot clean your carpet you’ll start by lightly blotting the spot working from the outside in. Next you’ll rinse the area thoroughly with clean water, followed by blotting the area again. Always avoid scrubbing into the carpet because that can force the stain into the fibers all they way into the carpet pad. For water soluble stains, create a solution made up of 1/4 teas. of white vinegar or a non-bleach detergent combined with 32 oz’s of clean water. Water soluble substances include alcohol, cola, berries, excrement, washable link or latex or wet paint. To clean tougher water soluble stains like blood, wine, chocolate, vomit or coffee use make a cleaning solution using 1 tbls. of ammonia combined with 1 cup of clean water. Avoid using this on wool or wool blend carpet; use a mixture of water and mild detergent instead. A good rule of thumb before spot cleaning is following the carpet manufacturers care instructions.

4. Every 1 to 2 years have your carpeting professionally cleaned to remove deeply embedded grime and dirt.

5. Keeping grime and dirt from getting on you carpet to begin with is the best way to keep your carpet looking like the day it was installed. Using floor mats or carpet runners will go a long way towards reducing the amount of debris that gets into your home. You’ll also want to consider taking off your shoes before entering. To make it more convenient, lot of home owners have a special shoe rack or mat in the entry way. Changing your air filters on a regular basis is also highly recommended by most carpet manufacturers because the more dust particles eliminated by your air filters, the less will end up falling on your beautiful, new carpet.