Clients often ask us “How often should carpet be vacuumed?” Our answer: it depends! The main questions that we ask when thinking about carpet maintenance are as follows:

1. Do you wear shoes inside?

2. Do you have kids and/or pets?

3. How often do you have your carpet professionally cleaned?

These are (roughly) listed in order of importance, as vacuuming regularly is the single most important thing you can do to maintain your carpet. The reason for this is that small rocks, sand, dirt, etc. create small scratches and damage to the carpet fibers as you walk on the carpet. Over time, this damage becomes more apparent and starts to make the carpet look dirty, as the light can no longer reflect properly, thus creating the appearance of soil. This is why very heavily soiled high traffic areas of carpet sometimes never look uniform, no matter how many times or how well the carpet is professionally cleaned. According to the IICRC (International Institute of Cleaning and Restoration Companies), 79% of damage to carpet is from dry soil, not from liquid messes and spills. That shows how important a thorough vacuuming is!

So back to our original question: How often should you vacuum carpet? For most homes, once per week is sufficient. If you have multiple kids, pets, or shoes being worn inside, then even 2 times a week would be ideal. This is to lessen the amount of dry soil that is in the carpet and left there to be walked on. It’s also wise to use the hose attachment to vacuum the edges of each room and around furniture every other time you vacuum to lessen the chance that dust build up will create air filtration lines (which are very hard to remove once they are present).

Now that we know how often to vacuum, what type of vacuum is best? We will tackle this question in detail in our next post, so be sure to follow us on Facebook to see our next post!