Our customers often call us after their carpets are already completely soiled and dirty. Once they have their carpets cleaned and can finally be proud of their home again, one of the most common questions we get is how to keep the carpets in great shape. So, due to popular demand, we’ve prepared this series on carpet maintenance so that you can learn how to keep your carpets clean. You can also download our official Carpet Maintenance Guide and watch our video series.
- Prevent Soiling
- Vacuum Cleaning
- Stain Removal
- Professional Cleaning
- Download The Carpet Maintenance Guide
Prevent soiling
The first step to carpet maintenance is prevention of soiling. This is easy to achieve by placing entrance mats at the entrances to your house and placing rugs in the entrance foyer. This is effective in reducing the soil load. Rugs and mats are much easier to treat than fixed carpets.
Carpet Maintenance Video 1: Prevention & Vacuum Cleaning
Vacuum Cleaning
The mainstay of keeping your carpets clean is regular vacuum cleaning. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound “sexy” or “hi-tech”, but vacuum cleaning really does work. Vacuuming is important because it helps reduce the soil load and prevents dirt from being pushed down into the deep carpet fibres. Once the soil is deeply ingrained in the carpet it makes removal much harder and ultimately the cost of having your carpets cleaned will be higher.
The frequency of vacuuming varies depending on how heavily soiled the area is and how much foot traffic it sees. As a general rule we would recommend vacuum cleaning at least once a week and for heavily trafficked areas such as entrance areas you should probably be prepared to vacuum twice per week.
Treat Spills and Stains Immediately
It’s really critical to treat spills and stains as soon as they occur. It is much easier to clean fresh spills and there is less likelihood that a permanent stain will develop.
The basis process of stain removal is really simple. All you need to do is blot the spill with absorbent paper towelling and scrape off any excess material. Rinse the stain with plain water and blot again to dry up the area. Next you should use a specialised stain removal spray suitable for the particular stain you are treating, followed by another round of rinsing with water and blotting.
You can see our guide on stain removal for more details. If you need help with particularly difficult stains, feel free to contact us – we’ll be glad to help out!
Carpet Maintenance Video 2: Stain Removal
Professional Cleaning
Lastly, to really care for your carpets you should schedule regular professional carpet cleaning. The ideal schedule would have you get your carpets treated by low moisture carpet cleaning every 6 months and steam cleaned once every 18 months. These are rough guidelines only and you’ll need to make your own decisions based on how much wear and tear your carpets experience.
Carpet Maintenance Video 3: Interim and Deep Cleaning
Low moisture carpet cleaning is a relatively new technique that used special chemicals that trap dirt with need for minimal exposure to water. It is a very effective technique and really helps restore your carpet’s appearance with the bonus that the carpets dry almost instantly. The results are often almost as good as regular steam cleaning. Low moisture carpet cleaning lifts out deeply ingrained soil that you can’t reach by regular vacuum cleaning. It is important to help prevent permanent discolouration and damage to your carpets.
Steam cleaning is the “gold standard” in carpet cleaning and needs to be part of your carpet care program. While low moisture carpet cleaning does a really good job, steam cleaning will really spruce up your carpets. Additionally often the carpet manufacturers require customers to have their carpets steam cleaned in order to maintain the validity of the warranty.
For more information you can download and print our carpet maintenance guide below:
