How to clean a carpet at home

High-quality and properly selected carpet can rightly become the main decoration of the house: fluffy, soft, warm and beautiful. But over time, such a drawback of itself makes itself known as fast contamination - a property inherent in any floor covering. Is it possible to effectively maintain carpet cleanliness at home or is the only way out is dry cleaning?

Carpet Cleaning at Home: Ways and Secrets

Starting to clean, you should know in advance what methods you need to exclude from your arsenal, so that the carpet remains fresh and beautiful for a long time, and does not lose its appearance after several washings. It:

• bristles with hard bristles, as they can noticeably damage the pile;
• washing and cleaning against the pile;
• Carpet washing in unventilated rooms;

And also hot water (over 50 degrees), because high temperature can destroy the adhesive base of the carpet and provoke molting of natural fiber.

In addition, you should not walk around the palace immediately after cleaning, let it “breathe” a little and dry it properly.

Compliance with these rules will allow the carpet to maintain softness and color saturation for a long time.

Dry wash

Cleaning without water is possible if the contamination on the palace is minimal. It can be carried out with the help of salt, soda or special cleaning products of industrial production.

For the first method, you will need the regular salt that we use as food. It must be evenly distributed over the entire surface of the palace and rubbed with a brush until the grains of salt begin to darken, absorbing dirt from the pile. Then it remains only to walk through it with a vacuum cleaner, and the cleaning is over.

The same algorithm is used to clean the carpet using soda. It should be scattered evenly over the entire area of ​​the palace and rubbed well with a brush. But after the soda becomes dark, it must be left for 5-7 minutes and only then can you start vacuuming the carpet.

In a dry way, you can clean the carpet with a special powder or foam. Each manufacturer, of course, has its own instruction for the products it produces, but in general it boils down to the following:

• Spread the product over the surface of the carpet.
• Rub it lightly into the pile and leave for 1-2 hours.
• Vacuum the carpet.

When using foam on the palace, moist areas may remain, they must be dried with a hairdryer.

The listed methods are suitable for cleaning carpets with light soiling. If persistent or old spots are formed on the palace, they will have to be removed in more radical ways.

Wet carpet cleaning by home methods

In cases where it is not possible to cope with pollution by dry cleaning alone, a wet wash will come to the rescue using salt, soda, tea leaves or even sauerkraut.

Salt Based Cleaning Solutions
Add the juice of one lemon to a kilogram of salt, mix well and distribute the mixture on the surface of the carpet, leaving it to work for 20 minutes. After this time, we wet the broom in a hot soapy solution and begin to sweep the salt from the palace. This method of cleaning will not only help to cope with pollution, but also eliminate unpleasant odors. When all the salt has been swept away, the carpet needs to be dried.

Salt solution with citric acid also has good cleaning properties. For one liter of water you need to add 10-15 g of acid and a tablespoon of salt, mix well. Then, periodically dipping the brush into the resulting solution, we begin to clean the dirt from the carpet.With this kind of cleaning, wet areas remain on the palace, which must be dried.

Vinegar
Acetic acid will help to clean the carpet from dirt and eliminate unpleasant odors. The solution is very simple to prepare: for one liter of water you need to add a tablespoon of vinegar. In the resulting solution, it is necessary to periodically wet the brush with medium hard bristles, shaking off excess liquid back into a basin or other container.

Such cleaning is most effective for carpets made from natural fibers. For artificial materials, vinegar is dangerous and can damage them.

Drying the carpet after cleaning with vinegar is better in the fresh air, so if possible, take it out to the street or open the windows in the room to create a small draft.

Baking soda
By dissolving a quarter cup of soda in three liters of water, you can get an excellent cleaner. For convenience, the resulting mixture can be poured into a spray bottle, thoroughly sprayed on the surface of the palace and left for 30 minutes, then vacuumed. If you add the solution with the juice of one lemon, you can not only clean the carpet from dirt, but also return the former freshness of the colors.

Sauerkraut
You can also clean the carpet with the help of such a seemingly inappropriate product as finely chopped sauerkraut. After washing and squeezing through several layers of gauze, scatter it all over the palace and start brushing it directly on top of the cabbage. When it becomes dirty, rinse it again, wring it out and repeat the entire cleaning process until the cabbage is no longer contaminated.

With persistent and old spots, this method can not cope, but it will help to freshen the carpet and eliminate surface pollution.

Tea leaves
You can clean the carpet using tea leaves, it does not matter, from black or green tea. But this method is suitable only for dark flooring. Light carpets are not recommended to be cleaned in this way.

Another disadvantage of this method is that for cleaning you need to collect a fairly large amount of tea leaves, which must first be dried and stored in a dry place, otherwise mold will start in it. If this does not scare you, then having gained a small supply of tea leaves, you can try to clean the carpet with it.

To do this, fill it with water and squeeze. Spread a slightly damp tea over the entire carpet and leave it for half an hour. Then sweep it with a damp, clean broom, or just go for a vacuum cleaner.

Outdoor carpet cleaning

If you have the opportunity to clean the carpet on the street, then in winter it can be done using snow, and in the summer using shampoo or powder.

We use snow to clean
“Snowy” washing will allow not only to achieve cleanliness, but also give the carpet a pleasant frosty freshness.

To do this, you need to take the palace out to the street and put it face down on clean snow, after which walk around it or beat it with a mop or stick for 3-5 minutes and let it lie down in this form for about half an hour. Then turn over and wipe off dirty snow from its surface, after which pour fresh and clean everything again.

After this, the carpet should be hung on the crossbar and carefully knock out the remaining snow with pollution.

At home, the palace must be spread on the floor and allowed to dry completely.

Street wash
If you live in a private house, then you can wash the carpet right on the street. You need to do this on clean asphalt. Fold the carpet face up and pour plenty of water from the hose. Then, distribute a special powder or shampoo on the surface of the carpet, following the instructions, and brush the pile. At the end of cleaning, rinse the carpet with a strong pressure of water, and use a mop to drive out its residues.

The carpet should be left in the fresh air for 2-3 hours. After it dries slightly, it can be hung on a crossbeam for final drying.

Get rid of certain types of stains

In some cases, washing the entire carpet is impractical. Usually this applies to cases where the palace itself is clean, but several fresh spots have appeared on it.

So, a soapy solution will save you from spilled tea or coffee, which must be applied to the stain and wiped with a sponge. The solution itself is also washed off with a sponge, but already with clean water.

Fresh blood is easiest to bring with cold water. If the stain has dried, it is necessary to cover it with a piece of wet cloth for 30-60 minutes, and then wash it with cold water and powder.

If you need to clean the traces of chewing gum from the surface of the carpet, then just put something cold in this place (ice in a bag, for example). From low temperature, the remains of the chewing gum will harden and you can scrape them with a knife.

In contrast, wax stains are removed by means of high temperatures. Cover the tracks with a sheet of paper and walk on it with a hot iron. The wax will begin to melt and soak into the paper. Repeat the procedure until the next sheet is clean.

Some consider the carpet an indispensable element of the style and decor of the room, while others consider it a completely unnecessary thing that collects dust and dirt. Indeed, this interior item is easily contaminated and loses its original colors, but proper and regular care will help to preserve its beauty and brightness for a long time.

Video: how to easily and efficiently clean a carpet