How Often Should I Steam Clean Carpet? Along with water extraction, steam cleaning is the most efficient method of dealing with deeply embedded carpet grime. Its high-pressure vapors penetrate bottom soils, releasing them from the carpet.
But how often you should steam clean the carpet? Is it safe to use this method just as often as vacuum cleaning? Read on to find the answer to these questions.
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How does steam cleaning work?
Steam cleaner is a device that heats up water in a tank and releases it on the carpet under high pressure as steam. The vapors mix up with a cleaning chemical before release. The forceful jet of soapy steam reaches easily to the deep-down dirt particles and loosens them.
If the device has a dirt tank, it will collect the loose grime. If not, you will go over a second round with the vacuum cleaner to suction up the dirt.
How often can you steam clean the carpet?
While seeing that it deals with dirt so fast, some homeowners often use the steam cleaner. However, a steam cleaner is a device that focuses on the deep cleaning of the carpet. It isn’t quite fit for regular cleanings, as high pressure can make carpet fibers feel unwell.
So how often you should offer your carpet a steam treatment? Well, experts recommend doing it once a month. It is the perfect balance between removing the accumulated dirt and keeping the carpet intact.
If you do it at longer intervals, you can fail to keep up with the grime and bacteria growth. Once a month is just perfect to prevent a messy disaster while keeping the carpet far from damage. But what about more frequent cleans, like once a week or every two weeks?
As mentioned before, steam cleaning has its negative sides, besides its great efficiency in removing deep soils. You may want to take them into account when drawing up the cleaning schedule. Here are the steam cleaner’s disadvantages that have to keep you from using it often.
1. High pressure
While having a devastating impact on dried-in dirt, the forceful steam jet can affect the carpet too. If you use it quite often, it may start damaging the fibers, causing their breakage. With each cleaning session, the high tension makes the fibers thinner and thinner up until they tear.
The pressure may also contribute to fibers losing their fluffiness and shine. That’s why you are good to refrain from using carpet steam cleaning at short intervals.
2. Harsh chemicals
A steam cleaner uses a cleaning agent besides steam. It aims at adding extra cleaning power, forcing the dirt to release faster. However, frequent use of chemicals may bring harm to the carpet.
Moreover, the toxins may cause discomfort to children and pets, if any live in your house. With that said, it seems a wise decision to steam clean the carpet more rarely. Harsh chemical treatment is not so harmful, though, if you do it at longer intervals.
3. Extended drying time
Before using the steam cleaner, you should be aware that it will apply large quantities of water to the carpet. Unlike vacuum cleaner that uses dry suction, steam cleaning will have you wait for the carpet to dry.
The drying may take about 7 hours and even more if the room lacks good ventilation. Hence, according to simple maths, if you steam clean once a week, there will be 28 hours of waiting every month.
All this time you will not be able to walk on the carpet or run your errands. It can be quite stressful, especially if the carpet is in a high-traffic area, like the living room or kitchen.
How Often Should I Steam Clean Carpet? – Bottom line
To sum up, on this topic, carpet steam cleaning is a good practice, yet not when you do it often. While it’s tempting to use it daily to remove dirt in seconds, you should never forget about its drawbacks.
Keep in mind that carpet fiber may feel unwell when you bombard it with high-pressure steam. So in order to preserve the appeal of your carpet, consider using the powerful jet less often.
Vacuuming every week and steam cleaning every month is just the perfect combination to keeping your carpet clean and safe.
