How many times have you got home from work or a long journey and said to yourself Home, sweet home? Still, this home of yours is sometimes anything but sweet. Since you want to have it shining all the time, you need to invest a lot of time and effort to achieve this effect. And it’s not easy, especially when you have carpets to think about.
Carpets come in many sizes and shapes, and what is mutual to all of them is – they get dirty. Just think of all those tiny food crumbs, animal or your own hair, and the ever-annoying, out of nowhere dust piling up for nothing. All of this inevitably gets stuck in between carpet fibres. Still, these are (mostly) easy and simple to deal with. But what happens if you spill some liquid, such as food/drinks or something worse (remember pets just two sentences back)?
In the case of food crumbs and other dirt mentioned previously, the solution is not so complicated and you can do it quickly. Simply plug in your vacuum cleaner, and vacuum the carpet. To avoid occasional lengthy procedures, just vacuum regularly, and you’ll do just fine.
On the other hand, imagine spilling some wine on your carpet! That’s a tough one! Here, vacuuming won’t do the trick. You need something stronger. If you want to avoid strong consumer (chemical) products, you can try lifting the stain with a combination of baking soda, warm water, and vinegar. Or you can immediately go for the various products available at stores’ shelves.
Even when you manage to remove accidental stains and despite the fact that you vacuum all the time, carpets need washing. The occasional deep cleaning is certainly very useful, but let’s face it, the washing is a must. Now let us see how to wash a carpet actually.
Before you decide to wash the carpet yourself, there are some things you need to be aware of. For this kind of work, you need to have all the adequate precondition. One of the drawbacks is that you cannot wash the carpet yourself at any given time since you will need sunny and hot weather so as to have minimum drying time. Another important question is how to dispose of the dirty water containing chemicals.
If you still opt for a DIY approach, you will need the following items:
1. Sufficient outdoor space to lay your carpet;
2. Water supply;
3. Water hose;
4. Brush/carpet cleaner;
5. Adequate detergent, or equivalent;
6. Drying space;
7. Patience.
Washing your carpet in this way means that you lay down the carpet onto an adequate washing area first. When you do this, soak the carpet with water so well that it starts going through the underside. Once you have soaked it properly, sprinkle the detergent all over the carpet and start brushing.
Detailed brushing will extract all residual hairs or crumbs from your beloved carpet, and the water and detergent will join their forces against any stubborn stains. Having brushed your carpet thoroughly, you can move onto washing out.
Once you have washed out all the detergent from your carpet, it is highly recommended that you move it onto a clean, dry surface where the residue water can drip out. To achieve a faster drying, you may fold the carpet and leave it in a vertical position so gravity can do its magic. During this time, you will need the patience to wait for the drying process to finish.
Is it really worth the trouble?
Now that you know how to wash carpet at home, let us see if this is indeed worth all the effort you put in.
It is true that most of us prefer to do things on our own. In some cases, this is when we’re only certain that a job is done in the right way. However, as can be seen above the process consumes much of your time, it requires physical strength to lift the carpet multiple times, you need to clean up the mess you made once you have finished and it requires perfect weather. So, obviously, you can do it only during the summer.
Additionally, the method is not always feasible. For example, if you live in a building carpet washing in this way is a big NO. The reasons are more than obvious.
Even though the final result of your undertaking will be a clean carpet, spotless and almost as good as new, you still need to worry about what you are doing to the environment with all the detergent you used. This may sound insignificant or irrelevant to some people, but with this big a rate of pollution today this “little detergent” you used only makes the situation worse.
Conclusion
So, even if you do know now how to wash a carpet, this does not mean that you still need to do it. Here’s an idea for you to try. Take your carpet to a professional cleaner’s and they will now just the right thing to do.
Once you get your carpet back, try not to stain it right away.
0 comments