Carpet Care and Repair Topics

Carpet is too much of a headache to keep in good shape. In general, it requires weekly vacuuming, every one to two-year professional cleaning (may be able to skip a year or two if you have your own carpet cleaner), occasional spot stain treatments and repairs.

The point of this guide is to lead you to the best advice on each of these topics:

Vacuums:

For vacuuming tips and Carpet Captain’s rating of best vacuums, check out the vacuum buyer’s guide. I use a mix of my experience with vacuums, other people’s reviews of vacuums, and in-person testing of vacuums to determine the best vacuum out there for your budget and type of carpet.

Professional and at-home carpet cleaning:

Vacuuming is to flooring like brushing teeth is to dental hygiene: it does the majority of the work. But every once in a while, you need a professional deep clean.

Carpet is no different. Your carpet should be professionally cleaned at least every two years, and higher-traffic areas possibly more often. Professional cleaning uses extremely hot water, high pressure, and extraction to remove bacteria and stains from carpet. It makes your carpet look better and more sanitary.

Eventually, I’ll have a guide on what to look for in a professional carpet cleaner.

Some people may want to be their own carpet cleaner. There are two reasons for this:

• their carpet gets dirty often (maybe due to pets or kids)
• they want to save money vs hiring a professional

I think the first of those reasons is the best. The problem with saving money is, yes, it will cost less to run in at-home cleaner than hire a professional, but maybe not as much as you think. Carpet cleaning solution isn’t always cheap. You also have storage “costs.” The cleaner will take up valuable real estate in your home.

The first reason is better. If your carpet has frequent stains because of animals or kids, it’s going to get too inconvenient and costly to constantly hire a professional, and some at-home carpet cleaners do a great job. For this reason, I decided to focus on the best carpet cleaner for pets.

Spot cleaning carpet:

There’s a trick to getting out every type of carpet stain. One key for most stains is acting fast, so let’s cut to the case:

• DIY baking soda, vinegar, H2O2 and other natural carpet stain removers
• how to remove pet stains
• how to remove red wine stains
• how to remove old difficult stains (like mustard, coffee, red dye)

Carpet repairs

Sometimes you get a snag, burn, or other “permanent” damage to your carpet. Many times there is a way to fix it. Let me know your carpet problem in the comments below, and I’ll give you a fix.

Captain’s parting words!

Using these tips, you should be able to keep your carpet looking newer and lasting longer. If I didn’t cover anything you want to know, let me know in the comments below. I usually get back within a day.