Three Pitfalls To Avoid When You're Dry Cleaning A Fragile Carpet

While the dry cleaning method isn't the quickest or most efficient way to clean a carpet, it's your best option if the carpet in one of your rooms is particularly old and vulnerable. As long as you have and know how to use a few essential components like powder, a brush, and a quality vacuum cleaner, getting the carpet as clean as you would with other methods is more than possible. But when you're dry cleaning a fragile carpet, make sure that you avoid these three pitfalls.

1. Spreading More Powder Than Your Carpet Can Easily Absorb

Carpet cleaning powder acts like a dry form of soap; as you sprinkle it over the carpet, it'll spread among all the individual fibers and absorb dirt. While it's important to not leave any section of your carpet uncovered if you want your carpet to look consistent when the job is done, it's also important to avoid spreading so much powder that your carpet is overwhelmed.

Your carpet can only accommodate so much powder until the substance starts accumulating in huge piles on top of what it's supposed to infiltrate. To avoid applying too much powder, go around every part of your carpet over and over again and only put down a little bit of powder at a time. Once your carpet begins to look slightly duller, you can stop circulating between carpet sections.

Using A Brush That Isn't Specially Designed For Use In Dry Cleaning Carpets

Once you spread dry cleaning powder over your carpet, you'll need to rub it in with a specialized brush. Since the brush has to have large but relatively malleable bristles, most regular cleaning brushes won't get the job done. In fact, if you're really aggressive with your brush strokes, a normal brush could cause irreversible damage to your carpet.

To be safe, only use a brush on a fragile carpet that was specifically designed for use in dry cleaning carpets.

Waiting Too Long To Turn On Your Vacuum

After you scrub down your carpet, you'll need to wait a little while before vacuuming so that the powder has a chance to absorb as much dirt as possible. However, if you wait too long, the chemicals in the powder will begin to infiltrate the carpet fibers themselves and you'll end up with a floor that permanently looks paler than it should.

If you're not good at remembering and finishing a task after a good chunk of time has passed, use either a phone or an alarm clock to alert you when the time for vacuuming comes. When you actually get your vacuum out, cover the entirety of the carpet at least once before you start concentrating on specific parts of it.

To learn more, contact a professional carpet cleaning company like CCI Cleaning Connection Inc.