Show your carpets you care

Regular cleaning and maintenance is an essential part of carpet care, helping to preserve its appearance and extend its life for many years. Ricky Smith, Truvox International’s UK Field Sales Manager, shares some tips on caring for soft surfaces, including upholstery.

Flooring trends may come and go, but there will always be a place for carpets. They help to create a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere, whether in a blue-chip boardroom or a busy back office. Its soft and cushiony surface makes it a pleasure to walk on, and being less noisy than hard floors, it can be more suitable for certain situations such as multi-level buildings, helping to reduce sound disturbance between floors.

Flooring constitutes a big financial investment for companies, so it is in your best interests to make sure that regular cleaning and maintenance routines are in place. This will not only help to preserve its appearance, it should also prolong its life, giving you a better return on your initial outlay. Carpets can be made from natural or man-made fibres, in a variety of different piles, colours and weaves – but whatever style you decide on, there are a number of steps you can take to keep it looking good.

The virtues of vacuuming

Frequent and regular vacuuming of carpets will prevent build-ups of soil, dirt and gritty particles which can damage carpet fibres. High traffic areas, where lots of feet travel over the carpet in one particular place or route, can result in what’s sometimes referred to as ‘traffic lane grey’. Installing hard wearing door mats around entrances will help to trap the dirt before people enter your building, and if it’s possible, rearranging furniture to vary the walking space from time to time will also help.

Vacuums should be light and manoeuvrable so that they are easy to transport between floors or buildings, whether they are cylinder or upright versions. Many models now feature HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Arrester) filters, which ensure that pathogens and irritants in dust picked up by the machines are not redistributed in the exhaust air – particularly helpful for asthmatics or those with dust allergies.

For larger expanses of wall-to-wall carpeting, dividing the floor space into quadrants and vacuuming each one before moving onto the next section can be the most efficient way to clean it. Timing is everything with vacuuming – in other words don’t skimp! Taking your time, especially when it is a plush carpet, will help to deal with dirt that is more deeply embedded. Go over each section of carpet several times and work slowly to allow the suction to remove all the ground-in dirt and dust.

Areas where people sit and move their feet – at desks, conference tables or in break-out rooms/eating areas – will also need a special touch. Vacuuming by using a criss-cross pattern of overlapping strokes will produce the best results.

Flexible cleaning

Vacuum cleaners are now more adaptable than ever, thanks to developments in design, and tools and attachments that can handle different materials and spaces. Commercial strength metal brush rollers are ideal if up-to-the edge cleaning is required, and on-board crevice tools and dust brushes make cleaning around radiators or padded upholstery much easier.

There are some places where vacuuming is essential, but even the lightest, most compact upright or cylinder vacuum is too unwieldy for the job. Theatre and cinema auditoriums are usually fully carpeted, with rows and rows of upholstered seating; and it’s a similar story on buses, coaches and trains.

Back-pack vacuums are ideal for these situations. Look for models which feature ergonomic back supports and harnesses that position the units away from operators’ bodies for maximum comfort and ease of use. Adjustable waist straps should also be incorporated so that the weight of the unit is supported by the hips, and they should be suitable for left or right-handed operatives. As well as tackling stairs and awkward areas, above floor cleaning such as shelving, blinds, curtains and furniture is well-suited to this type of vacuum.

A deeper level

While regular vacuuming will keep your carpets looking good, deep cleaning is also recommended to restore brightness to even heavily soiled carpets. The type of business you run will determine how frequently you will need to do this, but whether you deep clean annually or quarterly, minimising the impact on your staff and customers is paramount. Carpet cleaning machines that use low moisture levels will leave carpets drier quicker, meaning any disruption will be kept to a minimum. Some systems can even leave carpets dry to the touch in under two hours.

Thoroughly vacuum your carpets before a deep clean to ensure that all the dry soil is removed. This should just leave the more sticky/oily dirt in the carpet ready to be tackled by deep cleaning. Any stubborn stains can also be pre-treated at this point with a spotting solution.

Systems that use polymeric carpet cleaning solutions are particularly effective. The solution, which is applied by a three brush scrubbing machine, releases sticky soil from carpet fibres and then ‘traps’ or ‘encapsulates’ the soil as it dries. Once the carpet is dry, vacuuming completes the process by removing the dried, encapsulated dirt from the carpet.

With the right care, carpets can keep looking good for much longer, reflecting well on your company image and providing employees, customers and visitors alike with a warm welcome. Cleaning equipment manufacturers are constantly updating and improving their products so do your research well, because there really is an effective cleaning solution for every type of carpet out there.

Published in The Flooring Magazine – July 2012