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Replacing the carpeting in your home is not cheap. The average American spends upwards of $1,600 when installing new carpets. And it could cost a whole lot more than that depending on what kind of carpeting you decide to install.
With that in mind, you should make every effort to maintain the carpeting you already have so that you’re not forced to replace it anytime soon. It all starts with learning how to keep carpet clean.
Keeping your home’s carpeting clean will take some work on your part. But it’ll be well worth it when your carpets are looking and smelling their best.
Here are 10 tips for how to keep carpet clean.
In This Post:
- 1. Put Down Doormats by Exterior Doors
- 2. Ask People to Take Off Their Shoes
- 3. Place Decorative Rugs in High-Traffic Areas
- 4. Vacuum Carpets Every Week
- 5. Get Familiar With Vacuum Attachments
- 6. Clean Up Spills as Soon as They Happen
- 7. Move Furniture Around in Rooms
- 8. Change Your HVAC System’s Air Filter
- 9. Hang Window Treatments
- 10. Hire a Professional Carpet Cleaning Service
- Conclusion
1. Put Down Doormats by Exterior Doors
Your first line of defense when it comes to keeping your home’s carpets clean is going to be doormats by each and every exterior door in your home. From your front door to your back door to the door inside your garage, you should have doormats set up by all of them.
Doormats will give people a place to wipe their shoes off before they walk into your home. That alone will prevent a whole lot of dirt, mud, dust, and other debris from making its way into your home and, more specifically, into your carpeting.
2. Ask People to Take Off Their Shoes
Almost 90 percent of people in the U.S. take off their shoes when they get into their own homes. But about 50 percent of them don’t ask their guests to do the same.
There are some people who don’t feel comfortable asking guests to remove their shoes in their homes. But you shouldn’t feel shy at all about asking them to do it. You would be blown away by how filthy the bottom of a pair of shoes can be.
If someone is only going to be in your home for a minute or two, allowing them to leave their shoes on won’t be the end of the world. But if they’re going to stay for a little while, ask them to leave their shoes by the door.
3. Place Decorative Rugs in High-Traffic Areas
Every home has high-traffic areas where people tend to walk back and forth dozens of times every day. These high-traffic areas often feature carpeting that has worn down and seen better days.
Consider placing decorative rugs over them to protect the carpeting underneath. It might seem counterproductive to put a rug on top of a carpet, but it’ll do wonders for your high-traffic areas and prevent them from wearing out on you too fast.
4. Vacuum Carpets Every Week
When you have carpeting in your home, your vacuum cleaner is going to become your best friend. You’re going to spend a lot of time pushing it back and forth every week.
That’s right. Every week you should be pulling your vacuum cleaner out and vacuuming every carpeted room in your home. Vacuum rooms horizontally and then vertically to make sure you’re picking up as much dirt as you can.
5. Get Familiar With Vacuum Attachments
How often do you use your vacuum attachments while vacuuming in your home? If you don’t use them at all, you’re going to want to change that if your goal is to figure out how to keep carpet clean.
Your vacuum attachments will help you vacuum along walls, under furniture, and more. Familiarize yourself with each attachment and learn how to use them so that you don’t have any dirt and dust lingering around longer than they should.
6. Clean Up Spills as Soon as They Happen
Generally speaking, you should try to encourage your family to keep liquids and anything else that could stain your carpeting away from your carpets. That means no eating and drinking in the living room and no walking around the house with tall glasses of juice.
But no matter how careful you and your family are, there will come a time when a spill happens, and it could leave a big stain behind on your carpets. To prevent a stain from setting in, clean up spills as soon as you notice them.
Even though it might not be easy, you can clean everything from glue and nail polish to wine and blood out of carpeting as long as you spring into action right away.
7. Move Furniture Around in Rooms
If you leave the furniture throughout your home set up the same way for years and years on end, it’s going to take a toll on your carpets. Your carpeting is going to wear out unevenly with some parts of it looking terrible and the parts underneath your furniture looking brand new.
To steer clear of having this happen, move your furniture around every few months so that you don’t have any obvious signs of wear and tear. Doing this will also prevent your furniture from leaving permanent marks on your carpets down the line.
8. Change Your HVAC System’s Air Filter
Your HVAC system has an air filter in it that’s responsible for filtering dust, allergens, and other contaminants out of the air in your home. It needs to be replaced at least once every three months and more often than that in dustier homes.
If you don’t change your air filter on a regular basis, it’ll allow dust to build up in your home and, by extension, your carpeting. All that dust will change the look and feel of your carpeting over time.
9. Hang Window Treatments
Hanging up curtains, blinds, shades, shutters, and other window treatments can help keep your home more private. It can also prevent the sun and its harmful UV rays from shining in and causing your carpeting to fade.
10. Hire a Professional Carpet Cleaning Service
You can follow all the tips listed here and still suffer from dirty carpets in your home. Keeping up with carpet cleaning can feel like a full-time job at some points and be almost impossible to do.
If you find yourself losing the battle against dirt and stains, hire a professional carpet cleaning service like Astrobrite Carpet Cleaning to help. They’ll utilize high-powered equipment and cleaning products to get your carpets looking like new in no time.
Conclusion
When you learn how to keep carpet clean, it’ll make it easier for you to maintain your carpeting. It’ll also allow you to get the most out of the investment you made into carpets for your home.
Your carpets aren’t going to last forever, though. They’ll need to be ripped out and replaced with new ones eventually.
Read our blog to find out about some of the latest trends in the world of carpeting.
