02 Aug How Can I Maintain and Protect My Carpets and Upholstery?
As a professional carpet cleaner, a question I’m often asked; “How can I protect and maintain my carpets and upholstery”? In this article I suggest some simple and cost-effective solutions everyone can do for effective carpet and upholstery protection. These steps will go a long way to prolonging the life of your carpets, couches, and rugs.
Floor Matts in the entrance ways.
Did you know… Roughly 80% of the dry particulate soil dispersed in your home happens in the first 20% of walkways? One simple way to reduce ware and soiling of inside flooring is to install a foot matt inside the doorway. This will go a long way to protecting your carpets main traffic ways.
Become a “shoes off” household.
Simple yet amazingly effective… Protect your carpet with a simple floor matt in the entrance of your home. I can often tell straightaway when walking into a job if the occupants are a “shoes on” or “shoes off“ household. As well as reducing the fine particle soil that footware naturally introduces. You also minimise the ware on the carpet that your rubber soled shoes create through friction.
Carpet and Upholstery Protector.
Basically carpet and upholstery protection can be applied to most carpet types and fabric upholstery. The process is quite simple; its sprayed evenly on the surface mainly the main surfaces, and worked into the fabric with a soft cloth or carpet rake.
How does it help to protect my carpet and upholstery?
Carpet Protector and Upholstery protector provide a Teflon layer which is completely transparent and unnoticeable to the eye. It effectively reduces the carpet surface tension, meaning that any spills will not soak into the fibres. Or at leas be greatly reduces. Allowing much more time to wipe up any spills. I often get requests to fabric protect carpets and upholstery which have recently been purchased. Alternatively we can apply carpet and fabric protector immediately after a steam clean.
Vacuum Regularly.
This is particularly important if you have pets. Dog hair and fine dust particles brought in from outside are a constant source of carpet soiling by owners.
How often you vacuum will depend on your individual situation. A weekly vacuum (with a decent quality machine) will remove the dry particulate soil and avoid build up. For pet hair or human hair, I highly recommend a vacuum cleaner with a spinning brush. This does wonderers in “freeing” the hair from the surface.
Regular Scheduled Carpet and upholstery deep Cleaning by a professional.
By far the best carpet and upholstery protection is to have a professional carpet cleaner service your home. Another common question is “how often should I get a professional steam clean”?
This is obviously a very customer specific question. It really depends on the individual and their specific needs, lifestyle, living situation etc. I have customers who I service four times a year, and I have customers who I service once a year.
Often the difference will depend on whether there are pets or messy kids in the house and how many of each there are. It also has a bit to do with how well you are doing all the other things listed above. But the short answer is that once a year is should definitely be the bare minimum and will go a long way to getting a much longer life out of your carpets. Booking a service with Coastal Carpet Cleaning is easy feel free to contact us today
What About Spills? What should I do?
Whilst I will endeavour to cover individual spills in a future article, this topic gets quite involved as there are obviously many different factors/ variables in each situation. In my experience I have found most people will jump straight onto google and try something themselves before having to call a professional, which is understandable.
Potential problems with Carpet Spotters
The main problem with going to the supermarket and finding some “catchily named” chemical to try, is that once you apply that substance you are not extracting it back out. Now this chemical might be effective in removing the troubled spot to some degree, that area will now form a sticky layer on the surface which as you walk over in the days that follow will attract dust and soil causing dark patches. I see this all the time.
Other Risks to your Carpet/ Upholstery
A second common problem is that carpet varieties vary so much in regards to fibre types. Broadly speaking there are natural or synthetic fibres. And then any combination of both. Often people will not read the tiny writing on the back of the bottle which will suggest to do a spot test first. And so if there are any natural fibres in the carpet such as wool these are prone to bleaching or colour fading.
I’m not suggesting any product at the supermarket is useless just that it is potentially risky! And does have a chance of making the situation worse.
So, what do you do?
A universal “risk-free” solution to any situation is use diluted dish washing liquid. Dilute at a ratio of around 1:6. And gently scrub it and blot it out with a clean cloth or towel. You then want to dry it as fast as possible through ventilation, heating, stamping with a dry towel. Natural fibres will hold water as they are absorbent. And so it is important to dry it as much as you can.
Finally I will add that prevention is often the best cure! I hope you enjoyed this article on carpet and upholstery protection. I hope it helps you maintain and protect the quality of your carpets and upholstery.
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