Tips: Carpet Care

Carpets are a major part of your home’s look and atmosphere, and contribute to a healthy indoor environment. Caring and maintaining your carpet professionally will keep it looking fresh and clean and extend its life and for years to come. But if you don’t look after your carpets then they can begin to wear prematurely.

• Save yourself money and keep your home fresh and clean with Chem-Dry of Liverpool’s simple carpet care tips:
• Vacuum your carpets three times a week using a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate arrester)
• Remove stains and spills as soon as you can with a Chem-Dry professional strength spot remover. Remove as much of the excess as possible, then apply spot remover and blot with a clean white cloth.
• Clean and protect your carpets at least twice a year with Chem-Dry – you’ll need to do this more often if you have children or pets

Carpet deep cleaning, the Chem-Dry way

Surely you didn’t believe the old adage ‘what you can't see won’t hurt you...’ anyway? When it comes to carpets and cleaning, what you can't see is precisely what can hurt you.

Homeowners often believe that routine vacuuming’s enough to clean your carpets and rugs. But it’s not. It may look clean, but the dust and particles that lie beneath the surface are the ones that are harder to shift and need a professional deep-cleaning job. Some experts suggest you should do this as frequently as every six months, others say 12-18 months, so we’d suggest including an annual deep-cleaning in your house’s cleaning plans.

Choosing an environmentally friendly cleaner isn’t just good for the environment, it’s good for your carpets too – your aim is to remove chemical residue, not add more to it. Commercial carpet cleaners often require gallons of water and some pretty harsh soaps – which not only take days to dry, but leave behind volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs left behind in your carpets can have a dangerous effect on your family and pets, including eye and upper respiratory irritation, nasal congestion, rash, pruritus, headaches, nausea, vomiting, dyspnoea and – in the case of formaldehyde vapour – epistaxis.

That’s why a Chem-Dry clean is different. Chem-Dry of Liverpool’s clean is based around The Natural®, putting the power of Mother Nature to work on your carpets. The Natural® is non-toxic and safe for kids and pets, so you won’t get any nasty side effects.

The cost of your carpet and its durability, appearance and stain resistance are determined by the kind of fibre used to make it. Most carpets are made with synthetic materials that are simple to maintain, affordable and offer a variety of styles. Most commonly, a mixture of nylon, polyester, acrylic and wool are used – most synthetic fibres are water-resistant, which helps you keep your carpets clean. Tightly woven or tufted fibres also keep stains on the surface where you can remove them quickly and easily. A periodic deep clean removes the dust and dander that settles on the base of the carpet. Chem-Dry's powerful Hot Carbonating Extraction process is suitable for all types of carpet whether they are Wool or Manmade fibres it works deep down for a phenomenal clean.

Vacuum regularly

Every house and family is different, and you’ll need to vacuum more or less depending on the number of people who live in your house, and if you have pets. Vacuuming a couple of times each week will suck up the dirt that would otherwise end up in the roots of your carpet. You can also add a preventative measure – after you’ve vacuumed, apply a quick spray of Chem-Dry Carpet Deodoriser for a fresh fragrance and to build up stain resistance protection for your carpets.

When accidents do happen, make sure you’ve got the right tools on hand to deal with them. Chem-Dry of Liverpool stocks a range of home products to lift spots and stains. For tricky stains a professional cleaning application may be required, but our technicians will be able to advise and guide you to the right product.

Climbing out of bed and burying your feet in soft, clean carpet makes it so much easier to get out of bed in the morning. Look for ‘green’ labels and eco-friendly brands to keep your clean home and fresh, and use natural products where possible. Keep your windows open for fresh air by having open windows and control your moisture levels with proper ventilation. Again, contact our Chem-Dry professionals will help you develop a routine maintenance plan to keep your carpets clean and your family healthy.

Grey traffic lanes

Like all textiles, carpets will eventually show signs of wear, which creates an illusion of soiling. If you’re not careful, this can cause misunderstanding between the homeowner and carpet care expert – even though a carpet has been cleaned, the traffic areas won’t look as clean as other, less used areas of the carpet. Areas where people constantly walk or work are known as ‘traffic areas’, and as they become warn you see an effect which is know in the industry as ‘traffic lane grey’.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that a carpet expert can do with traffic lane grey. If you have a ten-year-old carpet cleaned, you’ll end up with a clean ten-year-old carpet – which may not appear as bright and fresh as you’d hoped. The easiest way to slow down this wearing process is by rearranging the furniture so traffic areas are changed, or adding rugs to protect areas of high traffic.

It’s important that your carpets, rugs and fabrics get regular TLC. If your carpets and fabrics haven't been professionally cleaned for a long time, they’re likely to be heavily soiled and stains may have penetrated unprotected carpet fibres and backing. Chem-Dry of Liverpool will always endeavour to get your carpets and fabrics sparkling clean and fresh. If we can't clean it, no one can.

Pile Reversal

This is a phenomena seen in many types of carpet pile. It manifests itself as an area in the carpet that appears like it is darker or lighter - depending on where you are in the room. If you look very closely you will see the pile of the carpet in this area is 180 degrees to the rest of the carpet.

Don’t worry ! This is perfectly normal – even though you may not wish to have this- and cleaning wont make any difference to this area. It is something carpet manufacturers have tried for years to stop, unsuccessfully. It is a consequence of the normal day top day use of the carpet. The pile gets ‘stuck’ in the opposite direction to the rest of the carpet. Sometimes cleaning can make it more obvious because the clean carpet will reflect light more – that’s how you know it’s clean- so making the patch a little more noticeable.