The timeless carpet cleaning question...

How long can I go without cleaning my carpet?

I was gonna put this one in the F.A.Q., but it merits a blog post.

How long can you go without cleaning your carpet?

The answer: forever, but...

You can also drive a car on the same oil forever...until you can't!

"Clean carpets last long."

It's true, and it sells carpet cleaning services.

But aside from a being clear, concise marketing quip, it points to something worth looking into.

What's happens to carpet when someone says no to carpet cleaning? How does carpet neglect progress over time?

Let's explore:

At installation:

They're gonna be dealing with fuzz. Fuzz comes from factory shears that are cutting carpet fibers and giving it an even surface. Expect fuzz to fill up vacuum bags aplenty during the first six months to one year after new carpet installation.

One way to prevent this is a thorough grooming after install. Otherwise, it'll get pulled piecemeal with vacuuming over time.

1 Year, no pro carpet cleaning:

Despite diligent vacuuming, a full year's worth of soil has settled near the carpet backing. Soil in carpet is mostly dead skin cells. The rest is food, hair, and sand particles of varying sizes. Household vacuums can't pull these all these out.

A thin layer of soil rests like snow at the base of a forest of carpet fibers, like literal dust.

2 Years, no pro carpet cleaning:

Another years' worth of soil has settled on the carpet backing beneath the fibers.

Air quality declines from increased particulate matter and dust mites living in your carpet backing. These get kicked up with every step over the carpet. Odors begin to take shape depending on what's cooking in the kitchen and who's living where.

5 Years, no pro carpet cleaning:

The carpet needs replacement, probably. It might be recoverable if an experienced cleaner throws the kitchen sink at it.

Even though it's been vacuumed, there's a whole grip of soils you can't see down near the base of the carpet fibers. Traffic lanes are showing significant wear. Stains collect soil over time and become prominent.

It's like a demonic fern gully down there when you look under a microscope...spider mites and fungus rule the jungle of dead skin cells and frayed fibers. It's not a happy place.

10 years, no pro carpet cleaning:

The carpet is probably toast. It could cost more to clean than the carpet has value. This is likely the end of the road, and it was a dirty, nasty road. You can imagine how healthy the dust mite populations are by this point.

After 10 years of avoiding deep cleaning, there are color changes in traffic lanes, persistent odors, and a whole load of soils lodged deep in the backing.

The carpet backing is also probably delaminated from contact with soils. That means the carpet is no longer stable, and has no pop, and feels floppy underfoot. Like I said above, it's toast.

It's time to find someone who wants to tear out a nasty carpet and replace your floor ($$$$).

Present Day:

Poof! We're back!

Now you're thinking about how long it's been since you had your carpet cleaned...

While carpet soiling can get out of hand sometimes, almost any carpet can be brought back from the brink. There's no 10-year limit.

A pro can have a chance to bring carpet back to life as long as the carpet's structural backing holds.

However, it's important to know that a deeply soiled, neglected carpet will never return to it's original awesome state, as far as appearance goes. This is true no matter how ninja a cleaner is. Carpet will show some wear and damage if neglected.

So....we need to compare these two things when considering whether to clean or replace:

How much does new carpet cost vs cleaning? And how much value will you get from old carpet that's been professionally cleaned?

Cleaning costs about 10%-20% of the cost of replacement, and it can be done in a day. Also, The strongest restorative surfactants can work wonders on filthy carpet, so most carpet will be worth cleaning first.

It gets harder to justify cleaning a carpet when the fibers and backing are in bad shape or severely damaged. All the best cleaning chemicals in the world would only work to reveal a carpet in terrible condition in that case.

So, a homeowner or a business owner looking at a filthy, neglected carpet has some deciding to do...

Was the carpet super expensive and plush at installation? Then it's probably worth it to clean and restore some of it's original awesomeness even though it's been neglected.

Super cheap carpet from Home Depot? Maybe still worth cleaning...

Sometimes, a bit of love can bring it back. It's pretty obvious when it needs to get replaced. Like I said above, delamination or extensive fiber damage are the general limits.

If cleaning doesn't give you what you wanted, you can negotiate a lower price with a contractor when you replace it. The contractor gets to cut, lift and drag clean carpet to a dumpster, not soiled carpet. That's worth a lil' $$$. Or a lot if you're me.

I certainly don't want that job. I like cleaning and maintenance.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do is get your carpet deep cleaned every year with hot water extraction and chemical agitation. It will cost less overall and avoid all the nasty problems.

If you need carpet cleaning service and you live in or near Ocean Shores, WA, give us a call. We'll get you taken care of and keep your maintenance cleaning on schedule.