best performance from your carpet cleaner

How to Do a Routine Carpet Cleaning

1. 
   

   Get Rid of Dust and Dirt

   Allowing dust and soil particles to remain on carpet fibers is what causes them to look dull and retain odors, and it eventually wears out the carpet backing and fibers. Using a vacuum with strong suction—and using it often—is the best way to clean carpet. However, if you don’t have a vacuum, there are other ways to clean carpet, like an old-fashioned broom or carpet sweeper.

2. Spot-Clean Stains

   The best time to treat a carpet stain is as quickly as possible. For liquid spills, immediately blot away the moisture with paper towels or a white cloth. Never use a cloth or napkin that might not be colorfast.

   For more solid mud stains or dropped food, use the edge of a credit card or a dull knife to lift away the solids. NEVER rub a stain with solids, because it will push it deeper into the fibers. After the initial clean-up, follow the recommendations on a stain removal chart to remove specific types of stain.

Ways to Deep Clean Carpet

Eventually, carpet will need to be deep cleaned to remove heavy soil, restore the buoyancy of the fibers, and brighten the color. Most professional carpet cleaning services use a combination of detergents and steam to deep clean carpet and recommend cleaning at least once per year. Or, you can rent a heavy-duty steam cleaner and use the recommended carpet shampoo. Using a professional cleaning service or renting a machine is particularly efficient if you have wall-to-wall carpeting throughout the home, but that can be costly.

For do-it-yourselfers, there are smaller carpet cleaners that can be used with liquid carpet shampoo or dry shampoo products. You can also deep clean area carpets and even wall-to-wall carpeting with some simple products and tools you probably have in your pantry.