How Often Should You Clean Your Carpet? (Professional Recommendations)
I absolutely adore carpets in a home, but I do not enjoy the fact that they are easier to damage and more prone to wear and tear, unlike tiles and wood flooring. However, with some maintenance and regular deep cleaning, it is possible to preserve the quality, texture, and color of your carpets for well over a decade or two. With that being said, how often should you clean your carpet?
If you’re talking about having your carpet professionally cleaned, it’s advised that you do so every 12 to 18 months in order to clean, refresh, and restore it after being exposed to dirt, grime, stains, and other things. For regular cleaning, it is suggested that you vacuum your carpet at least twice per week. If you have kids or pets, then you should be cleaning your carpet in some way every single day.
Carpets are not as resilient to liquid damage or as durable as tiles, hardwood flooring, and cement.
In fact, if you don’t clean your carpet on a regular basis, even high foot traffic can cause it to become significantly dirty or damaged, ruining its texture, color, and quality.
Be that as it may, let’s take a look at some important information on why you need to wash your carpet yearly and vacuum it regularly.
Table of Contents
Reasons Why You Should Clean Your Carpet
- To preserve its color, texture and appearance.
- To remove stains and other impurities from your carpet.
- To kill germs and disinfect it.
- To keep a clean and sterile environment for your kids and pets.
- To avoid wasting money by having to replace your carpet sooner than normal.
- To remove odors and nasty smells.
When Should You Clean Your Carpet?
The frequency of carpet cleaning is dependent on a number of different factors. Kids, foot traffic, pets, and location all affect the recommendations by professionals on how often you should clean your carpet.
Here’s a breakdown of these factors and how often you should vacuum your carpet.
| Factors To Consider: | Frequency Of Cleaning: |
| Kids | Daily or at least four times a week |
| Low Foot Traffic | Once a week |
| High Foot Traffic | Three times a week |
| Pets | Daily or at least four times a week |
| Indoor Location | Twice a week |
| Outdoor Location | Weekly |
You don’t know what people are bringing onto your carpets from their shoes in high foot traffic areas.
The last thing you want is for someone who walked through a dirty area or used a public urinal to be dragging their dirty shoes over your carpet.
Even if you can’t see anything, it’s unsanitary and unhealthy for you, your kids, and your pets.
This is why it’s recommended to at least vacuum your carpet frequently in this kind of situation.
When it comes to kids and pets, they’re messy. More importantly, because they are delicate, they shouldn’t be exposed to dirt, bacteria, and other unnecessary contaminants that could have been cleaned from your carpets.
How Often Should You Shampoo Your Carpet?
As much as sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming your carpet regularly is a great way to remove a lot of dirt, dust, and grime, it’s not all that effective for stains and liquids that dry up within the pad of your carpet.
That’s when shampooing comes into play.
Not only can it disinfect your carpet, but it can also remove more stubborn stains, replenish the texture of your carpet, and add a great scent to your carpet.
Thankfully, shampooing your carpet doesn’t need to be done as frequently as vacuuming.
| Factors To Consider: | Frequency For Shampooing: |
| Kids | Three to six months |
| Low Foot Traffic | Yearly |
| High Foot Traffic | Twice a year |
| Pets | Three to six months |
| Smokers | Three to six months |
Tips For Cleaning Your Carpet
- Don’t wet your carpet because it can seep into the pad and cause mold to form inside.
- If you lightly wipe your carpet, be sure to air dry it in the sunlight.
- Wait until your carpet is completely dry before adding furniture onto it again.
- Vacuum your carpet before shampooing to remove light dust and dirty.
- Vacuum in streaks and return over the same spot to ensure that all dirt, dust and other things are removed.
- Vacuum your carpet with a HEPA filter to kill more of the germs and bacteria that may aggravate your allergies.
- Try to get your carpets shampooed every 3 to 6 months to prolong its texture and rich color.
- On the flip side, don’t wash your carpets too frequently because that can strip away some of the color over time.
How To Use A Carpet Cleaning Machine
If you are one of the lucky people who have more advanced carpet cleaning equipment at home, you can save money by doing it yourself every couple of months instead of hiring someone to do it for you.
Generally speaking, it’s better to hire a professional to reduce the possibility of destroying or damaging your carpet.
But, if you follow some essential tips, you could use a carpet cleaning machine on your own to clean and restore a dirty carpet without ruining it.
Step 1: Remove all furniture.
Step 2: Lightly sweep or brush your carpet.
Step 3: Begin with your first round of vacuuming by slowly working your way over the carpet.
Step 4: Prepare your cleaning machine by adding the carpet shampoo or cleaning formula.
Step 5: Start from one corner of your carpet and work your way over to the other end. The reason you don’t want to start in the middle is because you don’t want to get cornered or have to clean the same area again.
Step 6: Remove all the dirty mixture from your carpet cleaning machine.
Step 7: Repeat the process but just with warm water to make sure that all the formula is removed from the carpet and any leftover dirt or germs.
Step 8: Dry your carpet. You can air dry it in a cool and dry spot as well. For carpets that are installed from wall to wall, use a fan to dry them. Make sure that it is completely dry before placing furniture on it.
If all else fails, you can always find a professional carpet cleaning business in your area that will have the best of the best equipment and formulas to restore extremely dirty, stained, or damaged carpets.
Final Thoughts
Trust me, I know that it can be a little annoying to clean your carpet regularly, but the money you will save in the long term is worth the investment of effort.
If you can vacuum regularly and get your carpets shampooed or deep cleaned at least once a year, your carpet should stay in pristine condition for many, many years.
I hope that you found this article on how often you should clean your carpet to be full of valuable and useful information.
If so, I think you would find these articles useful as well:
1. What are the most durable carpets for high traffic?
