How Often Should Carpets Be Professionally Cleaned?

Carpet hides dirt well, which is a nice quality in a floor and a poor one in a reminder. Most people wait until the walking lanes turn dull, and by then the soil has been grinding at the fibers for months. Here is the schedule we give our own customers, for carpet, rugs and upholstery, and the handful of things that change it.

Our rule of thumb, household by household

These intervals come from years of walking into homes and seeing what the carpet looks like at twelve months, at six, and at three. They are a rule of thumb, not a law. Use the row that sounds most like your house, then adjust after your first clean, once you have seen how much came out.

Notice that the schedule is about who lives on the carpet, not what the carpet is made of. A plush bedroom carpet in a two-adult home can go a full year. The same carpet in a playroom cannot.

Why once a year, even when it looks fine

The soil that does the most damage is the soil you cannot see. Tracked-in grit is sharp at a small scale, and every step grinds it against the fibers. That is what turns a hallway dull long before it turns dark. Vacuuming lifts the loose part; the part packed down low in the pile stays put until a professional clean goes after it.

The best evidence is on the cleaning pads. Our process loosens the soil at the bottom of the fibers with a measured amount of solution, then absorbent pads pull it up and out of the carpet. The technician changes pads as the floor needs, and a room that looked perfectly respectable can load up pad after pad with gray. Customers ask to see them, and we are happy to show them.

Carpet that gets cleaned on a schedule also stays looking new far longer, because the grinding stops before the fibers fray. Cleaning is a maintenance habit as much as a cosmetic one.

Kids and pets move the schedule up

Children live close to the floor. They eat on it, build on it and bring the outdoors in on their shoes and knees. Twice a year is the right rhythm for a house with kids, and we usually find the family room and the hallway outside the bedrooms need it most.

Pets add a different kind of soil. Hair and dander settle in deep, and the oils in a coat transfer to the carpet wherever the animal settles, so the spot by the sofa or under the window goes dark first. Every six months keeps up with a dog or a cat in an ordinary home.

Heavy-pet areas are their own category. The room where the dog sleeps, the hallway to the back door and the floor around a litter box take more than the rest of the house, and every three to four months keeps them fresh. If there have been accidents, ask for our pet stain and odor treatment on the same visit; the enzymes in it digest what is causing the smell, right where it sits, and a spot that ever smells again gets re-treated at no charge.

Rentals, move-ins and move-outs

A rental should be cleaned at every turnover, no exceptions. The outgoing tenant gets a fair record of the floor's condition, the incoming one gets a carpet nobody else has walked on since it was cleaned, and the owner gets years more out of the carpet than a skip-every-other-time habit would give.

The same goes for a home you are moving into. The previous owners may have had pets you never met, and a clean before the furniture arrives is the easiest one you will ever schedule, with every room empty and every spot in plain view. If a move-out is on your calendar, book the clean for the morning after the movers are gone.

Area rugs

Rugs follow the carpet schedule, and for a simple reason: we clean them where they lie, on your own floor, while the technician is there for the carpet, so the yearly appointment covers both. There is no rolling them up and nothing to send away.

The rugs that need a second clean in the year are the ones doing the hardest work. The rug inside the front door catches what shoes carry in. The one under the dining table catches what the kids drop. Lift a corner now and then; a gray dusting on the floor underneath means the rug is full and it is time. Our rug cleaning page covers what the visit looks like for wool, synthetic and cotton rugs.

Upholstery

A sofa that only gets sat on wants cleaning about once a year. One the family eats on, or the dog naps on, wants it every six months, and a true dog sofa every three to four, the same as a heavy-pet room. Fabric holds body oils and dander the way carpet does, and the arms and the seat cushions show it first.

Before any piece is cleaned, the technician checks the care tag for the fabric's cleaning code, a W, a WS, an S or an X, and cleans the way that letter allows. Dry time is short, so the sofa is back in use the same afternoon. See the upholstery cleaning page for sofas, sectionals, recliners, dining chairs and mattresses.

What changes the answer

A few things push a home up or down the table above. Walk through this list once and you will know where you sit.

• Shoes on or off. A shoes-off house can stretch toward the long end of its interval. A shoes-on house with a gravel driveway sits at the short end.
• How many people. Five people wear a carpet faster than two, and a home office adds daytime traffic the floor never used to get.
• Carpet color. Light carpet shows soil sooner, which is a nuisance and also a useful early warning. Dark carpet hides the same dirt until it is heavier.
• Allergies in the house. Dust mite allergen and pet dander settle into carpet and furniture. Households that react to them often clean twice a year and add our allergy relief treatment, which treats the allergens left in the fibers.
• Your vacuum habit. A thorough weekly vacuum, slow passes in two directions, removes the loose grit before it works down and lengthens the time between professional visits.
• Entry mats. A mat outside every door and a washable rug inside catches most of what shoes bring in. It is the simplest carpet protection there is.

Why our cleanings stretch the gap

How often you need a professional clean depends partly on how the last one was done. A method that leaves soap in the carpet leaves something sticky for the next month's dirt to cling to, and the floor dulls again fast. Our low-moisture process leaves no residue, so a floor we clean stays that way about three times longer than one that got a soapy wet clean.

It also takes the main excuse off the table. The rooms are dry in about an hour, the solution is eco-friendly and non-toxic, and children and pets have the floor again the same afternoon. Smaller pieces get moved and the carpet under them cleaned; the big pieces, a bed, a dresser, an entertainment center, stay put and get worked around. Nothing about the visit asks you to clear your week.

Pick a date and keep it

The schedule only works if it happens. Tie your carpet cleaning to something you already do every year, the change of a season, a birthday month, the week before the holidays, and book the next one before you forget the last.

When you are ready, book online for any of our seven markets, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, metro Atlanta and Charlotte, and the office will confirm the appointment. Your technician tours the rooms with you first and hands you a written price before any work begins. When the work is done, the two of you go back through the rooms a second time, and every visit carries our 100% satisfaction guarantee. Love the clean, or it's free. If you have questions first, call 205-438-9096.

Questions about how often to clean