Welcome to the Nu-Way Systems’ carpet cleaning quiz.
WARNING: Don’t Hire a Carpet Cleaner Before Reviewing This Information!
The first quiz question is—How often should I clean my carpets?
Is it,
A) Not until they look dirty
B) Once per year
C) At regular 6 to 9 month intervals
Let’s look at the answers starting with “A”. Carpets are designed to hide dirt. In fact, a tan medium quality residential grade carpet can hide up to one pound of dirt per square yard before it even looks soiled. Knowing this we’d have to rule out “A” as an answer—in fact if you wait to clean your carpets until you see soiling, you’ll be doing irreparable harm to the fibers – shortening your carpet’s useful life by years. Rule of thumb: If your carpet looks dirty, it is actually filthy! Just think of the hidden dirt and grime grinding away at your carpet’s fibers every time someone walks across it. This is the main reason unsightly wear patterns develop in hallways and entryways.
Answer “B”, once a year, is a reasonable answer if your carpets are subjected to minimal use.
The best answer for households where children or pets are present, or especially for carpeting in high traffic areas, such as the most used rooms in your house, is “C”, 6 to 9 months. To protect your carpet investment, clean every 6 to 9 months.
On to the next question—The MOST important reason to have my carpeting cleaned is?
A) To maintain its appearance
B) To extend my carpet’s useful life
C) To protect my manufacturer’s warranty
D) For healthier indoor air quality for my family
If you answered a, b, or c you would be correct. Cleaning for any of these reasons is important. However answer “D”, Cleaning to improve indoor air quality, may be the best of the four reasons for cleaning your carpet. Carpeting traps all kinds of harmful air pollutants. You not only bring in dirt from outside; you also track in tar and chemicals, smoke, car exhaust, and all the other outdoor pollutants you can imagine. Not to mention the skin and hair follicles our pets and we humans deposit among our carpet fibers. It’s no wonder carpet serves as a breeding ground for bacteria, allergens, and dust mites.
Recent studies have shown carpet’s ability to filter all of these pollutants from the air we breathe is a real plus, and there is evidence that removing carpet in favor of hard surface floors actually increases the occurrence illness, allergies, and asthma. Of course, just like any other filter, we’ve got to keep the carpet clean for it to work. By cleaning your carpets on a regular schedule you will improve your family’s indoor environment as well as have beautiful, long-lasting carpets.
And on to the final quiz question—The best carpet cleaning method is?
A) Dry cleaning , also known as Absorbent Compound
B) Dry Foam cleaning
C) Shampoo cleaning
D) Extraction cleaning
The first three methods, absorbent compound, dry foam, and shampoo are effective ways to “appearance clean” carpeting. Appearance cleaning maintains the appearance of high-traffic areas of carpeting primarily associated with commercial buildings such as office complexes, shopping malls and such. If your goal is to deep clean your carpet removing the deposited dirt, pollutants, allergens, dust mites and bacteria, then none of these three methods are recommended. The only method recommended by the nation’s leading carpet manufacturers and the IICRC for deep, restorative, healthy cleaning is answer “D”—extraction cleaning. This is the method used by Nu-Way Systems to deep clean your carpets and restore a healthy indoor environment for your family.
That’s the end of the quiz. You now know how often to clean your carpet—we recommend every 6 to 9 months for most households and especially for those with children or pets. Yearly for rooms that get very little use. You also know that clean carpet is vital for maintain a healthy home as it impacts the quality of the indoor air your family breathes. And, you now know that the extraction method of carpet cleaning is the most thorough.
