Winter in Broomfield is the ultimate mixed bag. On the one hand, some of the best skiing and snowboarding in the US is right at your doorstep. On the other hand, it's difficult at best to prevent family, friends and others from tracking wintertime snow, slush, mud and other detritus into the house and all over the carpets. It's enough to make some folks reconsider the wisdom of having carpeting in their home. But the fact is the advantages of carpeting in winter far outweigh the disadvantages, and keeping your carpets looking great all year long is easy to do if you take the following tips to heart.
Tips for Keeping Carpets and Rugs in Broomfield Clean This Winter
Carpeting helps keep your home warmer, quieter and more user-friendly, and that's important during the winter when we spend so much time indoors. But winter poses a variety of challenges to the overall health of your carpeting and carpets don't take care of themselves. So, make sure you incorporate the following tips into your winter carpet care routine.
Tip 1: Employ outdoor mats
The best way to ensure the worst winter slop doesn’t make it into your home to ruin your carpets is to give people a way to clean the bottom of their shoes and boots before they enter. A robust outdoor mat will do the trick. The best outdoor mats are made of super-tough fibers that will stand up to winter weather and withstand having boots dragged aggressively over them day after day. Their long, hardy bristles will scour boot bottoms and remove 90% of what’s there before the person enters the house.
The outdoor mat should also have a sticky underside that will ensure it stays in place while people scrape their boots back and forth. A mat with rubber backing might seem like the ideal choice but rubber can crack in the brutally cold Colorado winter. A better choice is a mat with a PVC backing.
Tip 2: Don’t forget the indoor mats
No matter how hard people scour the soles of their boots on the outdoor mat some of that winter slop is going to make it inside. If you’ve got exposed hardwood flooring or carpeting inside your entryways they’ll pay the price. Damage to hardwood floors can necessitate floor restoration, while damage to carpets may require extensive cleaning. Perhaps even carpet repair work. But it doesn’t have to be.
Simply positioning vinyl mats immediately inside every entrance will protect what’s underneath, whether it be hardwood or carpeting. Just remember that the mats themselves should be cleaned off on a regular basis. Otherwise all the dirt, salt and sand sitting on them will wind up getting tracked into the house.
Tip 3: Vacuum
Vacuuming is fundamental to carpet care yet a lot of homeowners never take their vacuum out of the closet during the winter months. Analyzing exactly why that is would take more space than we have here. Suffice to say that vacuuming frequency tends to drop during the winter. If you want your carpets to survive until spring in good shape you'll reverse this trend and break out your vacuum at least once a week. Not only will it help your carpets last longer, it will also make your home a healthier place.
Tip 4: Stay on top of messes
No matter how many mats you place outside and inside entryways, wintertime mess is going to find its way into your home, and sometimes onto your carpets. When someone absent-mindedly brings a load of salty slush into the house and deposits it on the carpet, don't just shake your head and accept it. Get on top of it immediately.
Leaving a cold, wet pile of slop on your carpets can do more harm than you think. So as soon as you notice a mess break out the vacuum and suck up as much material as possible. After that fill a bowl or bucket with warm water and dish soap and, using a sponge, blot the affected area until it’s as clean as you can get it. Then let it dry and call Steve’s Carpet Care to remove any materials lodged deep inside the carpet.
Tip 5: Have your carpets professionally cleaned
One of the best ways to bolster the effectiveness of your other efforts is to have your carpets cleaned during the middle of winter and then again at the end of the season. If you need to choose between one and the other a mid-winter cleaning is a great idea. Even better if you schedule it for mid-December before the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
While we have focused on domestic carpeting in this article keep in mind that all these tips also apply to businesses. Arranging for commercial carpet cleaning in mid-winter will help your office look its best during the worst of winter. That, in turn, will boost morale among your staff and prevent your office carpeting from requiring major spring cleaning and restoration work.
Get in Touch With Steve’s
Winter provides a wealth of unique treasures and experiences but winter weather can be tough on floor coverings, especially area rugs and carpeting. To make sure your residential or commercial carpeting makes it through the winter intact, get in touch with Steve’s Carpet Care by calling 303-530-4900 and arrange for expert carpet cleaning today.