Carpet Shampoo Basics

Today's carpets are designed to hide and repel dirt. Carpet fibers, however, can still trap and hide dust, dirt, bacteria and other allergens. Vacuuming and shampooing you carpets on a regular basis has several benefits that that include the following:

• It protects your carpet thereby extending its life.
• It radically reduces dust and particles that aggravate allergies and asthma.
• It makes the room smell better.
• It gives a fresh, clean look to a room.

Carpet Shampooing
So if you have a carpet, then carpet shampooing is a skill you are going to have to acquire, unless you pay a cleaning service to clean it for you. This wind up being very costly! It is much more economical to do it yourself and is actually very easy to learn to do. When shampooing your own carpet, here are a few tips:

1. Don't Soak the carpet, since it might cause the carpet backing or seams to separate.
2. Provide proper ventilation or use fans to quickly dry the carpet and expel any odors from the cleaning solution.
3. Allow the carpet to dry completely before walking on it - 12 hours is recommended.

The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to buy a carper shampooer or rent one. There are pros and cons for both choices. Over time you will wind up paying more for the rental machine on the other hand, rental is the way to go if you don't have the space to store a shampooer of your own. Buying your own shampooer is initially more, but you will have in the house if you have a spill guaranteed to stain before you can get home with a rental machine.

Carpet shampoo rental is an option for individuals who are not willing to invest in a carpet shampoo machine of their own. Of the carpet shampoo vacuums, the Rug Doctor Mighty Pro Plus seems to be the best known, is highly rated by most users for cleaning capabilities and ease of use and most widely used as a rental machine and is available in most stores that rent out shampoo machines.

There are several carpet shampooers and even more carpet shampoos on the market today. Most of the carpet shampoo cleaners will work in all carpet shampoo machines. They vary in brand, method of delivery, and usage. Most of the major brand name vacuum cleaner companies produce carpet shampooers, so if you have a favorite brand, that should be where you start your search for your new shampooer.

The next thing to decide on is the shampoo to use. For this you need to keep in mind the types of dirt you want to remove. There are several specialized carpet shampoos. You can get carpet shampoos in different scents for those who do not like the chemical fragrance of the regular carpet cleaners. For instance you can get Hoover carpet shampoo with an orange fragrance. There is a Bissell carpet shampoo with multi allergen cleaners in it. The Electrolux carpet shampoo line has a foaming fast drying shampoo that cleans carpets and rugs. Dry carpet shampoo is formulated for low moisture content and to work without steam. The Hoover carpet shampoo line includes Hoover Second Nature Carpet & Upholstery Shampoo Cleaner which is an environmentally friendly products making it the best carpet shampoo choice for the ecologically minded. Stain-X puts out a dry foam carpet shampoo that can be used by the Electrolux, Bissell, and Kirby Carpet shampooer. With the dry foam carpet shampoos you are cautioned to soak up as much moisture from your spill as you can before using them. Woolite puts out a good carpet shampoo cleaner that can also be used on your upholstery. Kirby carpet shampoo is available as a carpet cleaning shampoo in concentrated pouches adding to the ease of carpet shampooer operation. Autoglym car interior shampoo is only one of the car carpet shampoo products available for car owners wanting to use a carper shampoo vacuum on their car.

The information given above is for those individuals physically capable of operating these machines. Shampooers can be very awkward and heavy to maneuver. If you have any health issues that restrict your movement, talk to your doctor before attempting to clean your carpets yourself. If you have health difficulties, your best option may be to hire a cleaning service to clean your carpets for you.

It is up to you to accurately assess your unique situation so that you get the machine and cleaners (or cleaning service) to best serve your needs.