The Importance Of Carpet Cleaning

There are many reasons to clean your carpets regularly, the most common is so they look good. General hygiene is another important reason for carpet cleaning. But below are a few more that might surprise you.  

Whats in our carpets?

Carpets, being a fabric covering much of a room, needs regular cleaning. Carpets can hold a surprising amount of dirt before it’s built up to such a level it looks very dirty. Studies have shown varying amounts of dirt within carpets, but the most commonly referenced is one pound (or .45 KG) per sq foot of carpet, that’s half a bag of sugar in a small square of carpet, that’s a lot of dirt. It’s also been proved that the average carpet holds more bacteria than the average toilet seat. 200,000 bacteria per square inch within your carpet compared to 295 bacteria per square inch of your toilet seat. But how often do you clean your carpet compared to your toilet seat?

This should not come as a surprise, our carpets have a rough job and get a lot of use. Everyday we walk over them, either with outdoor shoes on or when we take them off our sweaty socks or bare feet. The average person sheds over half a million skin flakes an hour, most of this will end up in your carpet. Over a quarter of house holds have changed nappies on their carpet, 2 in 5 said they exercised on the carpet and 1 in 4 admitted to having sex on the carpet. A quarter of households even said that dog poo has accidently been trod into their carpet.

All this and yet we come into contact with our carpet every day.

Its our soft, warm floor we walk across as soon as we get out of bed, it’s the children’s soft play mat, it’s the comfy living room floor. And half of us eat or drink while sat on our carpet, and anyone go by the 5 second rule?

How carpets are good for us.

Carpets can also be very good for us, carpets are the biggest air filter in our homes. Its been proven that carpeted living spaces have half the amount of fine dust in the air as hard surfaced living spaces. Carpets trap and hold onto particulate matter and allergens, where as hard flooring dose not so it circulates in the air. This is particularly important to people with sensitive respiratory systems. I grew up with asthma so I know the importance of clean air.

You might also find my article about how carpets improve air qulity, here is the link – https://rothwells.biz/blog-do-carpets-improve-air-quality/

Carpet cleaning – how often?

It is normally recommended to have carpet cleaning every 6 – 24 months depending on use and the amount of people or pets in your home. Vacuuming is important to remove some of the particulate dust collected in your carpet and should be done 1-2 times per week. And if you have carpets professionally cleaned with hot water extraction (often miscalled steam cleaning) on a fairly regular basis they can be kept clean and fresh.

Carpet cleaning also means your carpet will last longer, by removing the dirt in the carpet you remove the sandpaper effect this has on your carpet and prevents them from wearing and aging before their time.

For more information on carpet cleaning please see – https://rothwells.biz/services/carpet-cleaning/