Your carpet is a significant investment, both in monetary terms and overall home image. It is important to implement a good maintenance program from the beginning. A consistent and effective carpet care program can help preserve your home’s or office’s positive image and dramatically extend the life of the carpet.
There are many important reasons we clean and maintain any object, including carpets. The incentive for an effective cleaning and maintenance program is magnified when we recognize these activities contribute to the following:
- Maintaining the value of your property and reducing the rate of depreciation.
- Contributing directly to personal security and comfort.
- Accenting aesthetics.
- Encouraging topophilia (affection for place).
- Elevating a sense of well-being, which is the essence of good health.
- Sending caring messages and images.
- Promoting human dignity.
- Managing waste and hazards and contributing to environmental protection.
- Helping to ensure sanitation – reducing adverse exposure levels.
The appearance of a carpet depends upon several factors – color, pattern, density, fiber, and a viable carpet maintenance program. To keep the carpet performing its best, designing and implementing a comprehensive maintenance plan is very important.
Check the “traffic lanes” often for slight dulling of color; this indicates a build-up of soil and/or abrasion of fibers. Entrance mats or rugs and scheduled cleaning can reduce this deterioration. Areas, where large amounts of gritty soil enter the home, may become dull due to abrasion or scratching of the fiber surface, affecting the reflection of light. Frequent vacuuming with a CRI-tested vacuum helps to minimize this problem (www.carpet-rug.org).
A thoughtfully designed and implemented maintenance program performed by qualified personnel (CRI-SOA and WoolSafe® Service Providers or Clean Trust (IICRC)-Certified cleaning professionals), properly equipped and trained, is essential for optimal long-term performance of your carpet.
There is sometimes a big difference between cleaning the carpet and maintaining the carpet. Cleaning, very often, is the removal of apparent soil. For many carpet owners, cleaning takes place irregularly, on an “as needed” basis. Soiling, however, is a cumulative process that, if allowed to go too far, cannot easily be reversed. Maintenance, in contrast to cleaning, is a scheduled ongoing process of soil removal designed to maintain the carpet’s appearance at a consistent level of cleanliness and minimize fiber damage.
