Tips To Make Your New Carpet Last

Finally the new carpet is installed. It looks great, it matches the drapes, it matches chairs, it’s soft and clean and makes the room smell lovely. It’s exactly what you wanted. You may have spent ages shopping around for the best deal, choosing the exact colour, waiting for installation. You probably parted with several thousand dollars to get it, prepare it, pad it and have it installed. But despite all that time and effort saving and shopping around, once it’s on the floor we often neglect the huge savings earned through simple care and maintenance. How we choose to deal with the inevitable; the spills, the traffic, the spring garden party, the dog hair, the kids’ parties and just a few clandestine snacks can have a huge impact on the longevity of a carpet. But fear not, there are simple ways to protect your investment, and make that lovely new carpet last years longer than you might expect.

How Does Carpet Wear Out Anyway?

First a bit of background. When you see a section of carpet looking like it’s been trampled by a herd of elephants, it’s usually because it hasn’t been maintained as well as it could have. Generally this flat, dull look means that the pile – the small loops of fibre that make up the thickness of your carpet – are losing their ability to stand upright. Normally when we step on one of these loops, they fold over and pop right back up again. But as the days and weeks go by, little pieces of soil and dirt fall from our shoes, drift in through the windows, and brush off our coats. These little pieces of sand and soil are abrasive to the fine fibres that make up your carpet. In high traffic areas, these abrasive little particles quickly get driven deep into the carpet, where they grind away at the fibres. Bit by bit, step by step these little particles grind away at the carpet fibres, eventually causing them to lose their ability to bounce back up, creating a flat, worn out look. The good news is that these little particles are relatively easy to remove. A good quality vacuum with high suction will remove most dirt particles when they’re on top of the carpet. Vacuuming regularly can prevent many of those particles from slipping deep into the carpet where they get trapped and do the real damage. Over time, even with regular vacuuming, some of those dirt and sand particles are going to work their way deeper into the carpet and start grinding away. To remove these deep dirt particles, you’re going to need a bit of water, the right detergent and much more suction. To pull those particles up from deep within the carpet, there is simply no match for the power and suction generated by a professional carpet cleaning system such as those Busy Bees operate.

Easy Things You Can Do

The key to keeping your new carpet looking good is regular cleaning, and keeping as much soil out of it as possible. Here are a few tips from Busy Bees’ professional carpet cleaning team that will make your carpet last as long as possible.

1. Regular Vacuuming For homes, once per week or more often if you’ve got children, pets or live in a sandy or dusty area. At businesses, nightly or thrice-weekly vacuuming may be required, where high traffic and lots of shoes mean lots of soil. This should remove most dirt from the surface and first few millimetres of carpet.
2. Leave Shoes Outdoors Whenever practical, leave shoes by the door, and ask your guests to do the same. Shoes are the biggest source of dirt in carpet, and the tread of work and athletic shoes helps grind it into the pile.
3. Treat Stains Immediately, and by Type Each stain is treated differently, depending on what it is. A quick treatment with a  follow up by a professional cleaner can remove a stain that would otherwise have ruined a carpet. We’ll get more into the details of emergency stain removal in our next posting.
4. Regular Professional Carpet Cleaning For both homes and commercial carpets, a regular professional cleaning will remove deep-down soil and prevent it from grinding away at your investment. A professional cleaning every year for most homes, every six months for offices and every three months for businesses with lots of customer traffic is recommended.

These simple tips can add years to the life of your carpet and save you thousands of dollars. If you’ve been a little bit lax in your maintenance routine and want to get a fresh start, call Busy Bees Carpet Cleaning and let us know that it’s been a wee while, even a late start will help that carpet look it’s best and add years to it’s life. And remember that professional cleaning costs a tiny fraction of the cost to replace a carpet, and a regularly cleaned carpet will last years longer than one left to left grind away. Busy Bees offer Professional Carpet Cleaning in Auckland and Christchurch.