How Often Should You Clean Carpet
Your carpet fibers can easily become dirty, so how often should you clean your carpet? Is there a general rule of thumb you should follow, or does it vary depending on your situation? Join me in looking at all of the different factors involved, as well as the recommended timeline for how often you should deep clean your carpet.
Different Factors to Consider
It’s important that you give your carpet and flooring the proper care so that you can maintain a nice clean household. Let’s look at some different factors to consider that will help you determine how often you should clean your carpet.
Foot Traffic
Does your carpet have a lot of heavy traffic, or is it relatively low traffic? If it’s in an area of your home with relatively low foot traffic, then you may not have to clean it as often as an average household.
Whether there are muddy shoes that frequently travel the area of carpet or flooring will depend on how often it should be cleaned. For instance, if it’s a carpeted entryway, where there’s a lot of foot traffic and often dirty shoes, this will greatly increase the amount that the carpet will need to be deep cleaned.
Pet Owners
If you are like me, then you love your furry friends. Although furry friends are amazing to have as a part of your life, they often contribute to the amount that you must clean your home. They love to romp in the mud and bring their muddy paws indoors.
Money paw prints will greatly contribute to the amount of time and energy spent maintaining a clean house and clean floors.
Young Children
Having young children or little ones in your home also makes a difference in how often you have to clean. Although kids are a joy to have, they also increase the amount of time spent maintaining a clean home. If you have young children present in your house, then you will likely want to clean your carpet and flooring more often.
Allergies
If you or a family member has allergy symptoms, then cleaning on a more regular basis will be necessary. Rather than the general rule of thumb, you may find yourself deep cleaning the house, especially the carpet more like 3 to 6 months, rather than the longer recommended time frame.
Homes with carpets are especially rough on allergies and allergy symptoms in general. They tend to be very difficult to completely clean the carpet fibers, and completely reduce the allergy symptoms.
Dust Mites
Some homes have more dust mites, and difficulty with dust than other homes do. If your ductwork hasn’t been cleaned recently, then you might have a lot of difficulty with dust gathering around your home. This means that you will need to clean your carpet more often to keep on top of those dust mites.
New Carpet
New carpet, on the other hand, will likely mean that you don’t have to clean as often. Make sure to check with your carpet manufacturer and warranty to know the specifics about how often your carpet should be cleaned. The amount of time, in general, will also vary given these other factors outlined as well.
Maintaining a healthy environment is one of the key reasons why we are looking at how often you should clean your carpet. It’s important not only for the health and well-being of your family but also for the comfort of your home. Let’s look at the general rule of thumb.
Frequent Cleaning Rule of Thumb
A good rule of thumb for deep cleaning carpet is to estimate you will need to do a deep cleaning every 12-18 months. Keep in mind that this is the general rule of thumb and will vary depending on other aspects we have mentioned above.
Even though deep cleaning your carpet and flooring is generally best done every 12 to 18 months, there are other types of cleaning that you will definitely want to do in between times. Let’s look at a general overview of the different types of cleaning and how often they should be completed.
Frequency of Cleaning
It’s important to keep on top of a regular cleaning routine so that you don’t always have dirty carpet in your high-traffic areas. No matter if you have carpet or hard floors, you will still want to keep on top of a regular cleaning routine. Let’s look at some different forms of cleaning that should be done on a regular basis.
Regular Vacuuming
Regular vacuuming with your average household vacuum cleaner should be done to help clean area rugs and your normal living space, such as living rooms, bedrooms, and hallways. You will also want to be sure to clean out the HEPA filter when you are finished vacuuming so that you can avoid any clogs or buildup inside of your vacuum.
Most households will only need to vacuum once a week, however, if you have little ones around you may find yourself vacuuming more like 2-4 times a week. Then there are the pet owners who are trying to stay on top of pet hair like me. Usually, pet owners end up having to conquer the pet hair with daily vacuuming.
Spot Cleaning
Spot cleaning or tough stains such as carpet stains or even furniture stains will need to be done on an as-needed basis. You can use a specific stain remover spray or make your own using equal parts cold water and white vinegar, then scrubbing them thoroughly with a brush or paper towel.
It’s important to take care of the stains as soon as they occur so that they don’t become long-term problems. With your carpet you will also want to make sure to remove as much moisture from the treated area as possible so that the liquid doesn’t seep down into the carpet padding.
Deep Cleaning with a Carpet Cleaning Machine
When we talk about deep cleaning carpet, we usually mean using a steam cleaning machine, to thoroughly clean the carpet. This can be done with carpet shampoo and a rug doctor, through a hot water extraction process using a cleaning solution. Usually, there’s a specific type of carpet shampoo you want to purchase as your carpet cleaning product, but you can also make your own homemade carpet cleaning mixture if needed.
When using a shampooer, it’s important to thoroughly clean the carpet, then suck out as much moisture as possible and allow the carpet to thoroughly dry without walking on it. This process should be done every 12 to 18 months so that your carpet stays nice and clean in your home and is a healthy environment.
The Life of Your Carpet
Staying on top of cleaning your carpet properly will help to extend your carpet life. You may want to check with your carpet manufacturer to see how often they recommend cleaning your specific type of carpet, and their recommended method.
Professional Carpet Cleaners
Hiring a professional carpet cleaning company, to deep clean your carpet may be an option if your carpet is especially dirty. A professional cleaning service is usually rather costly but may be needed in some cases.
You can always try renting a carpet shampooer such as a rug doctor from your local hardware store or even large box stores like Home Depot or Lowe’s and trying to clean your carpet yourself.
No matter if you choose to hire a professional, or use a rented a machine to do it yourself, for most households this process should be done every 12 to 18 months to thoroughly clean the carpet.
Other Factors to Consider
What about light-colored carpets?
Light-colored carpets are likely to need to be cleaned more often. This is simply because light-colored carpets will show dirt much more easily than dark-colored carpet to do.
Do you allow shoes to be worn inside?
If you allow shoes to be worn inside your home, this means that you would likely need to clean the carpet much more often. The dirt from shoes worn outside will track into your home and need to be cleaned from the carpet much more often.
You have small children
Small children are a lot of fun, but unfortunately, they typically require that your house be cleaned more often. This is because kids and usually enjoy playing in the dirt, and typically check the dirt inside.
You have large families
Larger families usually mean more traffic, which means more dirt and deeper cleaning required. If you have a larger family, you will likely want to consider deep cleaning your carpet more often than the general rule of thumb.
What if you have a deep carpet?
In deep carpets, soil particles can often get down in the carpet and be very difficult to vacuum out. Vacuum cleaning regularly is a good idea, if you can set your vacuum cleaner to a higher level so that it’s not getting tangled in your carpet. Likely if you have deep carpet you will need to deep clean it more often as well.
Overview of a General Cleaning Routine
Your cleaning schedule will be unique to you and your family’s situation. Keeping your house in tip-top shape is always a nice goal to aim for. For a general family with average traffic, here is an outline of a recommended cleaning routine. Keep in mind that you will need to adapt this based on your specific home situation.
Regular Vacuuming: 1 – 2 times a week
Spot Cleaning: As needed
Deep Cleaning: Every 12 – 18 months
Professional Cleaning: as needed
Enjoying a Clean Home
For your average household, setting up a cleaning routine to stay on top of daily or weekly vacuuming will help keep your house in top condition. This way you only have to deep clean your carpet every 12 to 18 months, or as needed. Keep in mind that this general rule of thumb may vary depending on your specific situation.
I hope that this has been helpful and that you are able to better determine how often you should clean your carpet and have gathered a few tips and tricks to keep your home nice and clean. Thank you so much for stopping by!
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