On average, one person sheds 1.3 million skin flakes every 60 minutes. On top of that, the U.S. collectively receives over 43 millions tons of dust each year with two-thirds of that ending up indoors. Just one ounce of carpet dust provides sustenance for about 2,000 dust mites.
Having learned those appetizing facts, you may be wondering how often to clean your carpet. Obviously, there is a need for deep cleaning, but you don’t have time to deep clean every day.
Let’s find out how often the average carpet should be cleaned and what factors affect it.
How Often Should You Clean Your Carpet?
First off, are your carpets new and covered by a warranty? If you want to keep your warranty valid, you may have to get your carpets professionally cleaned at a certain interval. Once a year is typical, but check your warranty paperwork to determine the specifics for your particular warranty.
The general recommendation for how often to clean your carpet is once every 12-18 months. However, this range is still quite large and only somewhat helps you narrow it down.
On top of that, some homes will require more frequent cleaning while others can get away with less. This is because not every home gets dirty at the same rate.
Factors Affecting the Dirtiness of Your Carpet
As you may imagine, the carpet in the home of a single person who works outside the home all day takes far longer to get dirty than that in the home of a family with five kids. This makes it difficult to give a one-size-fits-all answer to how often you should clean your carpets.
Let’s look at a few factors that affect how quickly the carpet gets dirty. This can help you work out an appropriate schedule for your home.
Household Size/Traffic
The number of people living in your home, plus how often you have guests over will affect the dirtiness of your carpet. If only one or two people live in your home, the carpet will take longer to get dirty than the carpet in the home of a family of eight.
Additionally, if you throw a lot of parties and have guests over a lot, the carpet will get dirty faster.
Kids
Kids also have a huge effect on the dirtiness of the carpet. They tend to run in and out of the house more often than adults and they may not take care to wipe their feet on the doormat on their way by.
They also tend to get their feet dirtier in general. Adults will usually stick to gravel or paved walkways, but kids will be running around on the lawn and playing in the sandpit in the backyard.
Pets
Pets also cause a carpet to get dirty faster. Another body in the home, even a small body, will be shedding more skin cells that end up getting ground into the carpet. Add to that pet dander and fur, as well as possible bathroom accidents.
Pets that have access to the outdoors will dirty up a home faster than those who stay inside all the time. As they run in and out, they will pick up more dirt and bring it into your home.
Vacuuming Schedule
Vacuuming more frequently will help to extend the time between professional cleanings. The longer that dirt and dust sit on the carpet, the more opportunity it has to get ground into the fibres. This makes it hard to remove through simply vacuuming.
Vacuuming a couple of times a week can help you put off calling in the professionals for a few extra months. Don’t have time to vacuum your entire house that frequently? Focus on vacuuming the high-traffic areas.
For example, vacuum the entryway and other high-traffic areas daily and vacuum the whole house once a week.
Environmental Factors
The type of soil around your home is another important factor. Sticky clay will get tracked in faster and be harder to vacuum up than sandy soil. Additionally, more dirt will hitchhike its way into your home during rainy spells that turn the soil to mud.
Kinds of Carpet Cleaning
When it’s finally time to clean your carpets professionally, you have one more decision to make. What kind of carpet cleaning will you choose?
Steam cleaning has been quite popular for the last 50 years or so. This involves special machines that inject hot water into the carpet along with detergent. The water is then extracted.
However, the process isn’t as simple as it sounds. There’s no way to effectively get all the water out.
You’ll have to wait hours for the carpet to fully dry and in some humid climates, it’s almost impossible for the carpet to dry completely. This can lead to mold and other moisture problems in the carpet.
Steam free carpet cleaning is an excellent alternative that doesn’t require using water or harsh chemicals. This method is hypoallergenic, yet can still remove tough stains and strong odors like those left behind from pet accidents.
Top that off with an antibacterial sanitizer and a safety shield protectant and your carpets will be fresh and clean and stay that way for a long time.
Do You Know How Often to Clean Your Carpet?
Do you still feel a little confused about how often to clean your carpet? That’s understandable. All the factors we discussed make it difficult to put a specific time frame on it.
Our best advice is to consider the factors we’ve discussed and experimented a little. Set up a schedule and keep an eye on your carpet.
If you notice that your carpet seem to be getting too dirty, shorten the time between professional cleanings, and vice versa if they are staying relatively clean.
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