I thought I'd do a little blogging. As promised in my first post my blogging is going to be relevant to who we are and what we do. Now, we clean carpets, upholstery and hard floors. Most of us have carpets and this is the 'bread and butter' of our business so may as well start there.
Q: What is the easiest thing that anyone can do to maintain the look and feel of your carpets
A: Simple - Thorough Vacuuming!
Regular vacuuming of your carpet helps to remove dry soil. What is dry soil? Dry soil is the term we use in the industry to describe the particles found in your carpets. This can range from fluff, to sand, pollutants, pollens, dust mites, dead skin etc. If you want to know what is really lurking in your carpet then visit my website http://www.thecarpetcleaningman.co.uk/#Richard%20and%20Judy and watch the Richard & Judy video...
WARNING
If you suffer from a nervous disposition then you should think twice before watching this video - it's HORRIFYING!
The dry soil which can be found at the base of your carpet acts as a pair of scissors that will ware your soft plush fibres of your carpet which shows itself as wear and tear, especially in the traffic lanes (the common-walked areas).
So, how can you extend the life of your carpet through though and regular maintenance? There is a little more to it than just running the hoover around once a week! There is vacuuming, spotting, hi-lite cleaning and deep and thorough professional cleaning.
In this blog I am just going to deal with vacuuming - Did you know that in the average home, with families and children should be thoroughly vacuumed once or twice a week... if you have pets or smoke then this increases to two to four times a week!! How many people vacuum that often! The truch is that these are recomendations from the IICRC (http://www.iicrc.org/). To remove the maximum amount of soiling you need the right tool for the job. It's no good trying to use a bicycle pump to blow up a car tyre... it will do it, just not very well!
Here's what I recommend... Upright vacuum cleaner, two motor (one to drive the vacuum when to drive the brush), bagged, yes bagged! and spend as much as you can afford to budget for but exect to pay somewhere between £250 & £300 for a good vaccum cleaner.
Why?
Simple - Upright vacuum cleaners have a beater bar (brush) that beats and lifts the pile of the carpet for maximum dry soil extraction. Who remembers the hoover advert from the 70's... beats as it sweeps as it cleans... Two motors are important because one drives the vacuum and the other drives the brush. If you have a seperate motor driving the brush then you won't loose any power from vacuum motor!
I had a client who took offence to this once when we were having this same conversation, you see pull-along 'tub' vacuums don't usually have a powered brush and relies on friction and airflow to remove the dry soils, therefore they don't open the pile to remove the dry soils. Don't get me wrong, these machines are great in the right place, low profile carpets and hard floors is where they perform well as they are designed to remove surface debris and what YOU really want is deep down thorough dry soil extraction!
So how do you vacuum a carpet thoroughly?
Firstly, remove any small, valuable and breackable items from the areas to be vacuumed, this is just to make sure you don't break anything whilst you move the big furniture, which you will move to one end of the room.
WHAT! MOVE MY FURNITURE! - Calm down dear, it's not that bad! Don't forget this is deep and thorough vacuuming, get your husband to move the big stuff.
Now you have everything moved decide on which way the pile of your carpet is, turn your upright vacuum cleaner on and pull towards you, try this in different directions, you are looking for the way the pile 'stands up' the best. This is likely to be either in the length or the width, very rarely is it diagonally. Once you have found the way the pile stand up then go to the corner of the room and start vacuuming by SLOWLY pulling the vacuum cleaner towards you, standing the pile up as you go. How slow is slow? about 1 second per 12 inches. It is this stroke that has the most cleaning power, not the forward stroke. Once completed push the vacuum cleaner forward and parallel with the stroke completed and repeat. Once finished the area repeat but in a left to right action, again looking for the way the pile stands up the best. When it comes to traffic lanes then spend a little more time vacuuming these, go over these areas more as this is where the main dry soil is likely to be.
Now, you probably won't have to go to this extent every time you vacuum, but!!! I suggest at least once a month. The regular vacuuming should be carried out using the same method, just without the moving of the heavy furniture. The important bit is to take your time, with more effort being concentrated on the traffic lanes or walk-ways.
So, here's my tips for effective vacuuming:
1) A Good quality Upright Vacuum cleaner
2) Ensure the bag/canister is never more than 3/4's full
3) Ensure ALL filters are kept clean and dust free
4) Ensure ALL pipes remain unblocked for good airflow.
5) Ensure your vacuum cleaning is in a good, servicable condition
6) SLOW DOWN when vacuuming.
I hope you found this interesting. Any feedback would be welcomed, if there is a specific topic of carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning or hard floor cleaning that you would like me to blog about then get in touch, chris@thecarpetcleaningman.co.uk
So until the next blog...
