Cleaning Your Carpet Filter
My carpet doesn’t have a filter, does it? Well not really, but it does function like a filter. For reasons I’ll explain later, this filtering is very beneficial. Have you ever really thought about what is really being collected, tracked through and spilled into your carpets? The most common household pollutants are; dirt, dust, pollens, stearic acid, pet dander, asphalt, sand, smoke residues, hydrocarbons, mites, tar, bacteria, foods, drinks, fungus, and some times viruses. Quite a few eh! The hydrocarbons come from outdoor pollution and your appliances; stearic acids come from cooking food. How many of these common everyday pollutants would you say are not in your carpets and upholstery this very minute? Not a pleasant thought is it? You might say… not my carpets they are clean. Perhaps, but carpets are designed to hide soil from your eyes. Keeping it trapped below the surface where it does the most harm. Not convinced? Do a little test. Place a new bag inside your vacuum; thoroughly vacuum all your carpets. When done remove the bag and cut it open and take a look at what really inside your visually clean carpets.
Now considering that all of this disgusting stuff is in your carpet, and more is likely to be brought in everyday, eventually the carpet will become full. As you walk across your carpets you re-distribute the dust and pollutants back into the air you and your family breathe. As a result of being full, your carpets will also begin to appear visually dirty. This visual soil may take upwards of 1-2 years before it finally shows itself. By then it has done a lot of damage to your carpet, and has contributed to greatly having poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).
What Can Be Done?
Well for starters you really should clean your carpets and flooring more often.Shaw Industries the worlds largest carpet manufacturer, recommends, that you have your carpets professionally cleaned every 6 to12 months, just to maintain the warranty. Comprehensive scientific studies have proven that by simply cleaning your carpets you will drastically improve the indoor air quality of your home, making it a healthier place for you and your family. Consider this… most of us wear our clothes once and then place in the laundry for washing, yet our carpets and upholstery go unwashed for as much as 1-3 years or more. Can you imagine wearing the same pair of socks for a week, let alone 1-3 years? Your carpets are subjected to far more pollutants on a daily basis than a pair of socks, yet most of us do not clean our carpet regularly. View your carpets for what they are, a soft, warm, and comfortable pollution filter, that requires maintenance and cleaning. Ideally in addition to frequent vacuuming and spot cleaning, your carpets should be professionally cleaned at least every 12 months. As mentioned at the beginning, the benefit of having a carpet filter in your home will result in less airborne dust and pollutants in your home. A simple comparison: Two identical homes, with the same number of family members and traffic patterns. One has carpet throughout and the other tile and wood floors only. With or without the AC or furnace running, which house would you say has a better indoor air quality? If you said the house with the tiled floors you are incorrect. Why? Without the benefit of a carpet to trap the indoor dust and pollutants, they would re-circulate constantly throughout the house. More so if the AC or heater was operating. All of these circulating pollutants contaminate the breathing air mass.
The tiled house still needs to be swept, vacuumed, dust and mopped almost daily, and still needs a professional tile and grout cleaning every 12-24 months to keep up with the pollutants and dust circulating through the house. Studies have revealed that most homes indoor air is more polluted than the outside air. Is yours?
Keep up on the dry particulate soil, especially in here in Southern Nevada, by investing in an efficient vacuum cleaner. Make sure it comes with a HEPA filter to capture the very small particles that normally go right through most vacuums and right back into the room. By frequent and thoroughly vacuuming your carpets you can remove as much as 70% of the dust and pollutants that exist in your carpets. The remaining 30% is usually trapped within the carpet fibers, or has bonded to the sticky, wet soils. Thus the need for professional carpet cleaning. The key to carpet longevity is through maintenance.
