Six Tips To Protect Your Carpet

Even if it is not a demanding accessory, the carpet should not be mistreated though for you to enjoy it as long as possible. To protect it and keep its texture and colors as fresh as possible, just follow these six tips which are actually recommendations about things you should never do to your carpet and what to do instead, as seen via Home.About.com.

The first of the six tips to protect your carpet is not to scrub it when wanting to remove a stain. The explanation is pretty solid: carpet is made up of fibers that have been twisted together in order to increase their strength. The twist is then “locked in” with heat. Therefore, by roughly scrubbing at the fibers, you run the risk of undoing the lock and having the fibers come untwisted which will cause the appearance of a big fuzzy patch on your carpet, looking worse than the stain from the original spill. Instead of rubbing, just blot the dirty area till the stains comes off.

And the first rule takes us to the second – use only cleaners which are specifically designed for carpets and stay away from multi-purpose cleaners. Still, if you want to use DIY cleaners, experts recommend the following recipe: white towels and/or paper towels, ¼ cup plus 1 cup lukewarm water, clear dish-washing liquid and ¼ cup cool water. Dilute the washing liquid in the specified volume of water and then, using the towels blot as much of the stain as you can.

The next two rules go without saying, but need to be reminded: do not wear your shoes over a carpet and do not drag furniture across the carpet. There is probably nothing worse than walking across a carpet with your shoes on and the dirt going deep into the fibers. As concerns moving furniture, if you cannot roll the carpet or lift the furniture, then it is recommended you use sheets of plywood slipped under the furniture.

Modern vacuums come with beater bars designed to brush carpet fibers. If it may help improve the appearance of many carpets, such as saxonies or friezes, the power head may harm looped carpets such as the berber. Last, avoid exposing your carpet to too much direct sunlight, especially over those hot summers days, or else the colors will fade sooner than expected.