If you want to preserve your carpet for years to come, it's important that it be regularly and correctly cleaned. Often, this is required if you want to maintain the warranty. While you should regularly vacuum your carpet and immediately clean up any spills or stains as soon as they happen, for full and effective cleaning you should call in a professional. When hiring a contractor, it's helpful to understand just how they intend to clean your carpet. There are two primary methods used for cleaning residential carpets: steam cleaning (hot water extraction) or dry cleaning (low moisture). The following will describe these two approaches.

Steam Cleaning

During the steam cleaning process, hot water and detergent is injected into your carpet and immediately vacuumed out, removing with it any soil or stains in the carpet. The equipment used can be portable or mounted in a truck. Generally, a truck-mounted steam cleaner delivers superior results because it is able to apply greater vacuum strength than a portable unit can. This allows the truck-mounted system to remove a much higher percentage of the water applied to the carpet. Portable units are often used for cleaning carpets in office and apartment buildings where truck-mounted systems will not work.

Advantages of Steam Cleaning

• Most carpet manufacturers recommend steam cleaning.
• The hot water helps to kill fungus and bacteria in the carpet.

Disadvantages of Steam Cleaning

• If performed incorrectly, over-wetting of the carpet can occur.
• In areas with high humidity, dampness in the carpet can lead to mold growth.
• It can take up to 24 hours for a carpet to fully dry.

Dry Cleaning

Dry cleaning uses a very different application method and a different set of cleaning compounds to clean the carpet, but it does it in a way that makes it possible for the carpet to dry much faster. When this approach is used, the fibers of the carpet can dry in less than two hours. This is achieved in several ways. To begin with, less moisture is used in the cleaning process. To help get the carpet clean, absorbent materials are combined with higher power vacuums. Finally, the rate at which the carpet dries is increased by using air movers to blow across the carpet.

Advantages of Dry Cleaning

• The drying time is significantly reduced as compared with steam cleaning.
• Dry cleaning is usually much less expensive than steam cleaning.
• This approach conserves water.

Disadvantages of Dry Cleaning

• Dry cleaning a carpet will usually only clean the top of the carpet fibers and will not get deep, ground-in dirt.
• This approach may not be effective with carpets that are badly stained.

If you want your house cleaned, contact a business like A-1 Maid Service Inc for help.