Many people believe that area rugs are just smaller carpets and that they can just be cleaned by a normal carpet cleaner the same way. That commonly held belief is wrong. The truth is that area rugs are very different than carpets, and so you need to treat them and clean them in a different way. Here’s why:
CONSTRUCTION
As it turns out, the biggest difference between the two is that they simply constructed differently. Think about it: your area rugs are made to be picked up and moved as needed, while your carpeting is attached to the floor and not moveable. Because they serve different purposes they have to be made differently. Plus, there are so many different types of area rugs from different styles and counties of origin which are all made differently. All of these different types of rugs require slightly different types of care.
SOIL REMOVAL
Most area rugs are thick with a dense pile construction. This means that there is a lot of places for dirt and soil to get trapped in the rug’s fibers. Because rugs are so thick, a vacuum can’t properly remove these small pieces of soil as easy as they can from less dense carpeting. One way to remove these trapped soils is to take the rug outside and beat the soil out of it. This is often how rugs used to be cleaned. Nowadays, you can just call a professional rug cleaner to remove this build-up for you.
FRINGE
Carpeting doesn’t have fringe because it is wall-to-wall, but many rugs do have fringe. This fringe requires special treatment because it is delicate. It must be properly taken care of in order to not damage the fringe.
BLEEDING
Most wall-to-wall carpets are a single color. However, rugs usually have a pattern on them. Some carpet cleaning solution can cause colors to bleed, which is fine in single-color carpet. However, in area rugs with intricate patterns, color bleeding can completely ruin the rug. Thus, it’s important to use the correct cleaning solutions that won’t cause color bleeding in rugs when cleaning them.
TEA WASH/ANTIQUING
Another color concern with rugs is antiquing, a process that is done by a manufacturer or importer in order to make a rug look older and more expensive. This is usually just a layer of very aggressive acidic wash or a post-treatment of tea dyeing. This layer can wash away during the cleaning process if using the wrong cleaning solution. If that does happen, you can reapply the layer after cleaning, but it still something to consider when choosing a rug cleaner.
PROPER TRAINING
Carpet cleaning requires training, but that training is different from area rug cleaning training. This is because there are many different types of area rugs out there that all require different care. Thus, area rug cleaners have to have a lot of training in order to have the knowledge to properly clean all of these different types of rugs. Don’t just trust any local carpet cleaner to clean your rugs unless you know that they have received area rug cleaning training.
PROPER CLEANING OF AREA RUGS
Proper area rug cleaning needs to be done by professionals. Often, these professions will have a rug cleaning facility which can handle just about any type of rug, instead of cleaning them at your home. In any case, make sure that you’re hiring a reputable area rug cleaner. Southside Chem-Dry is an area rug cleaning expert, and we’d love to help you out.