Tips For Maintaining Your Carpets At Home

A carpet in the home is by far the most popular choice for most homeowners. Our entire house has hardwood floors. I love the way hardwoods look and the fact that they are low maintenance (until they need to be refinished!). But they don’t help much in the way of comfort or energy saving. Carpets are comfortable underneath bare feet, and they trap a lot of heat. They also trap dirt, debris and bacteria, which hardwood floors don't. Each style of flooring does have its advantages and disadvantages. When it comes to looking after a hardwood flooring, it's not that difficult to know the basics. Hardwood floors can be mopped, little bits of wood that have been chipped off can be glued back on, and if the floor loses its finish, you can always varnish or buffer it. However for carpets it's a lot more difficult. Whether you are dealing with area carpets, throw rugs, or wall to wall carpeting, there is a process that you must adhere to, to get the best kind of maintenance you can.

Find the grain

Just like our hair, carpets are made with a grain. Grains in the carpet, show which way the design is going. The threads and the material travel in certain directions. When the threads are flattened, they hide dirt and debris underneath. Get down and take a look at which direction the grain is going for your carpet. Then take a steam vacuum cleaner and go against the grain and then with it. Make sure to push the threads back so you can get more depth and thus suck up most of the dirt that is hiding. If you are ever going to brush your carpet, you should go with the grain to keep the structure intact. Vacuum well and vacuum often to keep a carpet in great shape.

Getting out the water

Pipe leaks aren’t just a nightmare for the electrical system in the home, but also for your carpet. First of all contact an emergency plumbing service so you can figure out where the leak is coming from. Allow them to do their work as they specialize in major home leaks. Then, you should move aside all the furniture and use towels to absorb the water out of the carpet. You do this because you don’t want the heavy threads of the carpet to be pulled out with a vacuum cleaner. The carpet may already be weak due to the water so, take your time to pat down the carpet with towels. Leave the carpet to dry by opening all the windows. They you should use a steam vacuum cleaner to get the murky droplets out of the texture.

Filter the air

Small specs of dirt and dust flies through the air all the time. If you don’t have a good air purifier or air conditioning, this can land in your carpet. It's a good idea to make sure you are constantly changing out the air filter on your purifiers and cleaning the outside fans of the AC unit.