Here are some things you may not know about carpeting, carpet cleaning and carpet wear. If you were to magnify your carpet in your home and look closely, you would see that it is made up of millions of thin fibers woven together to form a sort of mat. If you looked very closely at the bottom side, you could see the layer of glue binding those fibers together to form the carpet. Dirt that comes into your home from shoes, feet, pets, wind, etc., is made up of all sorts of organic and mineral materials, which get deposited on your carpet. Often, this dirt is well concealed. With each footstep through the room, this dirt gets shifted further toward the bottom of the carpet.
One of the main components of this dirt is sand, (silica, one of the more plentiful minerals on our fair planet). The very same mineral that is melted down and poured to make glass. Like glass in its refined form, silica has sharp edges. These sharp edges get worked into the carpet by the passing of feet, where they constantly cut at these carpet fibers. As they wear, they fray.
At your home you could probably find a sample of your carpet as it was back when you first had it installed, if you look under a particularly heavy piece of furniture or back in an out of the way corner. These small areas of pristine carpet fibers give a very good “before” and “after” image of your carpets well-trod life. Remember how vibrant the colors used to seem? How fluffy the carpet looked? How soft it felt? Dirt and organic materials mat the fibers together. Sand cuts the fibers and makes the nap seem ‘frizzy’ and thin.
Regular vacuum cleaning can help keep your carpet looking better on the surface, but it won’t clean the sand particles out from the very bottom. Very few non-commercial vacuums can even come close. It takes a combination of a cleaning or detergent agent and extreme vacuum power to break the sand loose and pull it out of the carpet. Steam cleaning carpet cleaners are useful because the heat helps to break up the organics. As the steam cools it turns into water, which rinses the carpet fibers and the intense suction of the extractor removes a large percentage of the deep down dirt. “Dry” carpet cleaners also use a type of “detergent” which they sprinkle generously. This detergent breaks apart the organic particles, which bind the rest of the dirt, allowing it to be removed through suction.
By removing these deep down, fiber damaging particles, you are removing the “cutting” fibers that constantly shred your carpet fibers and the backing that holds them together.
Read more about carpet cleaning:
Carpet Cleaning and Murphy’s Law
Increase Home Value Investing in Carpet
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