Carpet Cleaning Frequency Recommendations
We often get asked the following question:
How often should we have our carpets cleaned?
And our typical answer is:
It depends.
There are a number of factors that determine how often you should
have your carpets cleaned, so let's take a look at those.
Factor #1- Where is your carpet located?
Is your carpet in a home with only two VERY clean people in it?
Or is your carpet in a business that gets a lot of foot traffic?
This is going to determine how often your carpets should be cleaned.
Factor #2- What kind of carpet do you have?
This is a factor because certain types of carpet simply hold and show more soil than other carpets.
A white nylon carpet is probably going to need to be cleaned more often,
especially for appearance, than a dark nylon carpet all other things
being equal.
Factor #3- Your budget
Budget is always a factor when it comes to how often a person, or business,
has their carpets cleaned. Always.
Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines As Proposed by The IICRC
The IICRC is the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning, and Restoration Certification.
The IICRC is a very-well respected international training and certification body that trains cleaners and restorers. Their recommendations carry a lot of weight in the industry, but are not iron-clad.
Residential Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines
As you can see in the photo, the residential cleaning guidelines for the normal
home situation is every 8-12 months, which is a good cleaning guideline.
However, the recommendation for cleaning every three to six months, if you have pets and kids (and most reading this article either have kids or pets), is a bit far-fetched.
Although cleaning your carpets every three to six months if you have kids and pets is just fine; (there is nothing wrong with those guidelines) but most people are simply not going to have their carpets professionally cleaned every three months. We are going to give realistic cleaning frequencies.
Our Residential Carpet Cleaning Frequency Suggestion
We would recommend cleaning your carpets every six months, sometimes more, if you have pets and kids unless YOUR pets and kids are amazingly clean! And if there is a special situation where you want your carpet to look great for a party, or something like that, then cleaning more often is just fine.
Day Care Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines
As you can see in the graphic, the cleaning frequency guidelines for day cares is sorta - well- insane to be honest.
We don't know of one day care that ia going to professionally clean the carpets on a daily basis, even during an epidemic which, unfortunately, we have seen.
In almost all cases we don't know of a day care that is going to professionally
clean their carpets on a weekly basis.
**Now we want to make clear that we are talking about PROFESSIONAL CARPET CLEANING. Not just vacuuming your carpets, although vacuuming your carpets is really important.**
Our Day Care Carpet Cleaning Frequency Suggestion
In most cases cleaning day care carpet should be done every three months, sometimes sooner, especially in high traffic areas. It really depends on the level of soiling, especially in there is any urine in your carpet. Urine needs to be treated differently and should not be in any day care carpet for an extended period of time.
Nursing Home Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines
As you can see in the infographic the carpet cleaning guidelines, from the IICRC, state that nursing homes should be cleaned every month. And if there is high humidity they should be cleaned once a week.
Again, cleaning once a week is not going to happen for 99.9% of all nursing homes and is not needed unless there is some unusual activity.
Our Nursing Home Carpet Cleaning Frequency
We recommend nursing homes be cleaned every three months throughout and every month in high traffic areas. This is a much more realistic carpet cleaning schedule than cleaning the carpet every month, or every week. As with any carpet situation, if there is a big spill or a urine situation the carpets should be cleaned more often.
Office Building Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines
The recommendations for cleaning office buildings is every 8-12 months, and every 3-6 months if the office is on the ground level. This is one time where we think the frequency guidelines are too far apart as far as cleaning.
Office carpets can receive a huge amount of soil, and all types of soil. Many times the soil is from asphalt parking lots which creates more of a cleaning challenge.
Our Office Building Carpet Cleaning Frequency
Our recommendation for office carpet cleaning is to have your carpets, all of them, cleaned at LEAST four times a year and in high traffic areas maybe even once every month or two.
Offices can get a LOT of traffic and the carpets can get soiled very quickly. It is not a good idea to have office workers sitting at their desk in an environment with dirty carpets and poor indoor air quality.
Restaurant Carpet Cleaning Frequency Guidelines
According to the IICRC your should clean restaurant carpets every month, and if it is dusty outside every week. Forget about the dusty issue, that really doesn't make much sense.
Restaurant carpets can hold a HUGE soil load. Many times the soil is a combination of cooking oils, food that is spilled, and soil tracked in from outside. This is a bad bad combination.
The appearance of your carpet is important in all situations, but especially for restaurants. Most people do not want to eat in a restaurant that has carpets that look like elephants live in the building.
Our Restaurant Carpet Cleaning Guidelines
Clean at least four times a year. Six times is probably a better idea, and to clean HEAVY traffic areas monthly. Like anything with keeping your carpets looking good, and being sanitary, it is important to do the DAILY maintenance DAILY!
So there you have it. The carpet cleaning frequency guidelines from the IICRC, and our carpet cleaning guidelines.
While me agree, at least in part, with the cleaning guidelines from the IICRC we do have some differences. The bottom line, though, is that YOU decide how often you want your carpets cleaned and YOU decided how often they REALLY need to be cleaned.
Clean carpet is good for indoor air quality, they look better, and in the long run the carpet last longer at a good appearance level. If you have any questions regarding our carpet cleaning service in Vancouver, and the surrounding areas, please contact us today.
Linton's Carpet Cleaning
Thank you for visiting our blog. If you have any questions related to our carpet cleaning services in Vancouver, Washington and the surrounding areas, please feel free to contact us.
At Linton's Carpet Cleaning we provide high-quality carpet cleaning, oriental rug cleaning, carpet repairs, and upholstery cleaning all while delivering great customer service.