Choosing and Maintaining Your Carpet

The biggest reason homeowners are unhappy with their carpet, is because of bad maintenance or choosing the wrong carpet for their needs. I am writing this report to help you avoid both those mistakes. It will save you money, frustration and time.

            I starting cleaning carpet in 1992 and since then I’ve inspected thousands of carpets and the information in this report is based on a cleaner’s viewpoint for carpet used in the average home. It is for people who want to get the most from their carpet, who plan to live with it for at least several tears, and who will use it under normal conditions.

            All kinds of unusual conditions can affect your choice of carpet and how you keep it up. Such as wheelchairs, home business, or how open or constricted you rooms are. Whenever there is a conflict between the information in this report and your carpet sales or cleaning professional, you should take their advice for your specific situation.

            Lets start with carpet selection. Of all the carpet fiber types, Nylon has the best blend of resilience color fastness, clean ability and durability. It is not the best fiber at anything, but is very good at everything. That is why eighty percent of carpets today are Nylon. Wool stains too easy. Polyester gets nap reversal, and Polypropylene, which resists stains great, mats down right away and never stands up again. Buy Nylon.

            Berber and all loop pile carpets are more durable than cut pile carpets. They wear out slower because there are no ends of the yarns sticking out to fray and loose fibers. The problem is that in loop pile carpets, each loop is attached to every other loop. If one loop gets pulled up, it will result in a run that goes clear across the carpet. This is a real problem around the seams and edges, where the yarns have to be cut to install the carpet.

            If you have to get a loop pile carpet, try to limit it to rooms that are small enough that the entire room can be laid without a single seam, or ask the installer to “Butter the seams”. He’ll know what you mean. Then, if a loop ever does pull up, get your glue gun and glue it back in place immediately, before it turns into a disaster.

            Loop pile carpets appear to be dirty faster than cut pile carpets. The dirt tends to sit right on top, where it is more visible. So if you have to get Berber, don’t get a light colored one. And if you get a white one, you better plan on using a professional cleaner a lot.

            There are two things people hate about the color of the carpet they just bought. Either it is too light and looks dirty right away, or it is too dark and makes the home feel like a cave. So choose a color that is to the light side of a medium shade. If you do this, you can avoid having to call me too often, and you will still have a bright cheery home.

            New carpet owners often complain that the color looked darker on the sample piece. Plan on the carpet appearing two shades lighter than the sample when it is in your home. Also take into consideration that the color of the carpet needs to hide dirt, even if you don’t wear shoes in the house. Carpets that have several different colors will hide dirt and spots better, and earth tones hide soil best. If you decide to buy a blue or blue gray carpet, it will show dirt almost as bad as white will, because no dirt is blue.

            As important as color is to hiding dirt, it is far better to prevent dirt and stains all together. This is accomplished by getting a carpet with a top quality stain resistance built in. Carpets with excellent stain resistance always have a five-year warranty against stains. If you can find a longer warranty, so much the better. Get a carpet warranted against stains for a minimum of five years. I can’t stress this enough, don’t waste your money, get an anti-stain warrantee.

            If you don’t get a stain resistant carpet, two months from now you may very well have a permanent, unremovable ink or Kool Aid spot on your brand new carpet. Because I told you to get a carpet warranted against permanent stains.

            There is another type of warrantee you should look for in a carpet. It’s called a no-wear warrantee. Nylon carpets yarns are given a heat set that makes them springy and holds them together. The higher the temperature and pressure of the heat set, the longer the carpet’s life will last. These carpets also clean better, and a good professional cleaning will make matted carpets like this spring back up just like new.

            The way you can tell a carpet like this, is because they are warranted not to show wear for a long time. The length of these warrantees varies from five to twenty years of no wear. The longer the warrantee, the better the carpet is made. You can also tell how good the heat set is by looking at a yarn and observing how tight the twist s are. The tighter the better. In fact, if they are so tight that the yarn curls over at the end, so much the better.

             By the way this heat setting technique has been tried with other fiber types. It only works with nylon.

            To summarize, buy a nylon carpet, not to light, not too dark, lean toward earth tones, lean away from looped pile with lots of seams, get a long stain resist warrantee, and a long no wear warrantee.

            Those are the most important things.

            Tough bind is also good to know, but that information is not often available. Tough bind tells you how hard it is to pluck a yarn out of the carpet. The higher the number the better.

            Beyond that, the salesperson will talk about denier, face weight, gauge and pitch. But all those technical terms are just telling you how much yarn there is in the carpet. The more yarn there is in the carpet; the more it is going to cost. It is also going to feel fluffier, last longer, hide more dirt so it appears to stay clean longer and keep the back of the carpet from showing.

            Here is a simple test you can use to see if a carpet is thick enough. Bend the carpet sample backward until the two ends of the backing touch. The carpet yarns will spread apart at the crease. Look into the crease and you will see the backing. On a very thick carpet, you will see little backing, on a thin one it will be glaring at you.

            If you have stairs to be carpeted, this is very important. You don’t want the backing grinning at you from the nose of each step

            By now you recognize that there is a lot more to picking a carpet than color and pattern, which is actually the least of your worries. To muddle the issue more, there are over four hundred carpet mills in the US, and each one produces a number of styles in various colors. The chance of actually finding the same carpet in two different stores is not that great, which makes it difficult to price shop. Worse, the installer has to factor in waste, which means they need to do an onsite inspection, and every installer’s calculation is going to vary.

            This makes true price comparisons impossible unless you have a written bid from each company with a cutting diagram and are comparing the exact same brand and style of carpet. You are more likely to get a migraine than find three truly comparable bids.

            Instead invest the same amount of effort interviewing salespersons at different stores. When you find someone you feel you can trust, go with them. Let them know that they are going to get your business, and the issue is simply helping you find the carpet that is best for you. Look for a sales person that looks like they want to make a career out of this, they will appreciate your referrals and repeat business after they have made you thoroughly satisfied.

            Lastly, a few tips on installation.

            Make sure you know weather you or they are going to move the furniture and ask to have the carpet rolls delivered three days before they are to be installed. You want to let them acclimate to your home.

            Ask for a foam re-bond pad, seven sixteenths of an inch thick, with a weight of nine pounds per yard or more. Do not get a rubber or waffle pad. Do not try to scrimp, by using cheap pad, installing over the old pad or carpet, or doubling up on the pad. These dumb ideas will ruin your carpet, while a top quality pad will make even a cheap carpet feel and wear well.

            Ask the person who does the cutting diagram to allow you some extra scraps. You may want to re-carpet the stairs or hall halfway through the carpets life, so you will need at least that much. In addition, you will want scraps to have bound and placed at every exit from the carpet, in front of heavy use areas like the sofa and chairs, and a few odds and ends to use in case you get a hole or permanent stain that needs repair.

            If you have any dark filtration lines on the edges of your old carpet, pull the carpet back and calk the cracks two days before the installers come. Similarly, if any areas ever had pet urine saturation, pull that up and clean and seal any spots on the floor underneath, even if the floor is cement.

            Ask the installer to power stretch the entire carpet. If they do, they won’t need staples. Power stretching helps insure the carpet gets just the right amount of taught ness to keep it from developing wrinkles down the road.

            Also ask them to secure the pad to the floor with a dribble of glue around the edges. The pad should be firmly butted, but not overlapping, at the seams, and seams should be taped with duct tape. Not taping the pad seams could result in gaps, overlaps, or permanent filtration soiling lines down the road.

            Make sure the floor is swept or vacuumed before the new carpet is installed.

            One last thing. Feed the installers a hot breakfast and lunch. Insist they eat it. It’s not your job, but this is very strenuous work. If the installer feels good, you will end up with a superior performance.

            Now for carpet maintenance.

Proper maintenance begins before you ever buy your new carpet. As mentioned earlier, you choose a lower maintenance carpet by color, style, a great protective finish, a no wear warranty and taking some extra steps before installation.

Before you get your new carpet, you also need a great vacuum. If you don’t have a powerful built in vacuum, you need one that has an agitator head, and a recovery system that filters out very fine particles the size of one micron or larger. Top filled systems are essential. Ease of use is an important consideration. As a general rule, uprights are better for carpet cleaning; canisters are better for general uses like cleaning vents.

Consumer reports put out excellent information on choosing the best vacuum. Don’t get ripped off, go to the library, look up consumer reports and then make sure you get either a HEPA filter, or a .1 micron filtration bag. My personnel choices of vacuums are on our products page https://healthyhome3.tripod.com/id1.html

Next, you will want to make sure that your heating system is working properly, and clean your ducts, vents, or chimney. Replace or clean filters, and do it again every six months.

Last thing you need to do before you get your new carpet, is select a professional cleaner. That’s’ right, before you get your new carpet. Choosing a cleaner now will help you should an urgent situation arise. For example what are you going to do if fingernail polish gets spilt on your new carpet? If it results in a permanent stain before you can find a cleaner who can tell you how to get it out yourself, you have just ruined your carpet. Choose a helpful, honest, cleaner now, put their phone number where you will have it when you need it.

Now for the nuts and bolts of maintenance.

There are several reasons for maintenance. First of all is health.

Your carpet is a giant filter, which traps contaminants so you don’t breathe them. This gives you a healthier home than you would have without carpets. But what happens when that filter gets full? You start breathing dust mite feces and corpses, bacteria, pollens, spores, fungus, allergens, air pollution, tar, nicotine, and scores of known carcinogens.

All of these toxins and many more are found in varying degrees in every carpet. For example, even homes that have never had a cat have a protein found in cat saliva, which causes allergic symptoms with millions of Americans.

Here is another, the day after you spray for bugs in your yard; the concentration of poisons is ten times stronger in your carpet than outside where you sprayed it. Additionally, in the average home dust mites are producing one hundred thousand dead bodies and thirty million pieces of feces every day.

Most healthy complaints indoors come from a lack of proper maintenance. Your carpets and upholstery should be cleaned at least once per year, regardless of appearance, for your health’s sake. You should vacuum at least twice per week with a fine particle filter. Get your ducts and drapes cleaned every two years. I also recommend an electrostatic air purifier (https://healthyhome3.tripod.com/id1.html ). Even if you don’t have allergies, there is no reason to live in an unhealthy mire. Take these steps and watch your health and quality of life improve.

Having your carpet cleaned every six to eighteen months, depending on the amount and type of traffic is important.

One purpose for maintenance is to prevent soils from becoming a permanent part of the carpet. Over time, soils oxidize to the carpet, forming a permanent bond that is difficult or impossible to remove. Regular periodic cleaning retards this problem. Your frequently maintained carpet will clean up far better than a carpet that has been cleaned sporadically.

Another reason for a regular cleaning schedule is to remove gritty soils that the vacuum cannot lift, or which are slightly sticky. Look at dirt closely, and you will see that it has lots of fine sand. This sand works its way deep into the carpet where the vacuum can’t get it. That is another reason you have to vacuum twice per week, to get sandy soils before they get too deep. Every time you walk on the carpet, the yarns are ground against that sand, cutting them and wearing them down into the fibers that fill up your vacuum bags.

Proper periodic maintenance will improve your health, make your home feel more restful and cheery, make your carpet last about twice as long, keep it looking good all the time, and save you money over the long run.