Why carpets should be cleaned.
The majority of homes and businesses have some type of covering on their floors. It may be wall to wall carpets, it could be rugs or carpet tiles which reside in a lot of business premises.
Irrespective of what it is, vacuuming alone will not keep them clean, and as healthy as they should be.
Just like the clothes on your back, your body sweats and transfers the sweat into the fabric. This sweat if not cleaned correctly will smell, hence the use of washing machines.
How do my carpets get to smell I hear you ask?
Do walk around in your socks, or bare feet?
Your feet sweat slowly all the time, and while you think this will not affect your fabrics it will over time build up. You probably won’t realise that an odour exists as you would be present in the same environment each day and just become used to it.
If you have a young family there could be an odd accident. Most people when they try to tackle an issue caused by a child will panic. Then they will rub and scrub, which by the way is not the correct way to tackle accidents. Any liquids will sink into the underlay. This liquid may evaporate and cause you no issue, on the other hand, some liquids may stagnate and then breed bacteria, thus causing odours.
Shoes or other footwear carry dirt, and this can get engrained into the filaments, changing their appearance slowly.
And our beloved pets. Wow, what they can bring into the home is just scary.
Just to make you aware we have a Labrador dog.
He is in the garden every day, goes on walks. He sleeps on the furniture and rugs. Has at least two walks a day. His walks are in the local woods. He sweats and slobbers.
And this is just one of many reasons your carpets should be cleaned by a professional.
How can carpets be cleaned?
They are made of either manmade products or natural fibres such as wool. This has been the process for many years.
There are some must-do ways to clean carpets. Only a trained individual would be able to assess this for you.
The preferred and most common cleaning method is hot water extraction or steam cleaning.
This process is where hot water or steam is blasted into the carpet dislodging any grit, grime, or grease. The fibres are with the power of the steam open up the fibres allowing a deep sanitizing clean.
Using this system allows the carpet to be cleaned thoroughly, and in addition to the three gs as mentioned above, bacteria, dust mites, are destroyed.
Another system used is the bonnet system.
This is a system that is used normally on carpet tiles. Normally the areas to be cleaned are a lot larger than
Carpet tiles are normally in the larger areas of a building, and as such speed is of the essence. The carpet tiles are very low profile due to their construction.
Care homes may have a mixture of carpet tiles and standards carpets so the process of cleaning could be a mix of systems.
Dry method
Even though this system uses the word dry, moisture is used.
The system uses a light pre-spray followed by the compound. This is ground into the carpet and then hoovered to remove all the sand-like particles.
The advantage of this system is it leaves the carpet touch dry. It cleans very light soiled carpets.
The disadvantages are if the carpet is heavily soiled there can be little difference in the appearance of the carpet when cleaned.
What are the health benefits of having your carpets cleaned?
Carpets act like a sponge and as mentioned hoovering alone is not the whole answer to maintaining your carpets.
In the world we live in the air has pollutants which unseen by us venture into the home, getting trapped in the fibres of the carpet.
Apart from that, having a healthy clean carpet will assist in protecting the health of your family.
If you suffer from asthma or another breathing issue, a clean environment will assist the home greatly.
Using the power of steam along powerful.
As mentioned earlier, the system steam cleaning is the most popular system used by professional carpet cleaners.
I will go into a little more detail about this system.
When the carpet is steam cleaned, the prior set-up is to hoover the carpet thoroughly, apply a pre-spray to the carpet which is then agitated into the carpet. Agitating the pre-spray opens up the fibres allowing every cm of the fibre to receive some cleaning compound.
The actual steam cleaning can be therapeutic to watch in action.
The steam as we know is super-hot and this not only removes the dirt ingrained in the carpet but destroys the odours. When the carpet cleaner empty’s the machine the odour can be quite powerful, and you have been living with this.
As with any cleaning process, the aim is to have the carpets back on the action as quickly as possible.
After a carpet is steam cleaned the normal drying time is between two to four hours.
What interim maintenance can the homeowner do?
Once the carpet has been cleaned you should try to keep on top of the maintenance of your carpet.
Yes, hoover at least twice a week. If you have pets this needs to be done daily. Check the edges for dust. Some carpets get black on the edges of the carpet. This is the dust underneath climbing up the fibre and slowly changing the colour.
In the event of food or liquid going onto the carpet, we suggest you act quickly. Blot as much as you can using an absorbent white towel. Never rub the stain this can damage the fibre permanently.
Need more advice why not give carpet cleaners Warrington a call. We are always on hand to assist.