Carpets with heavy spots, dust, and dirt are a burden to hand wash. Sometimes, hand washing does not clear up the whole mess, especially mould and pests from your pets. However, how to deep clean carpet with steam cleaner can be a challenge for beginners. This guide shall take you through the whole process.
A steam cleaner comes in handy in such situations. For a steam cleaner, deep cleaning all the dirt, mould and disinfecting is a call of duty.
So, how does steam cleaner work?
Unlike a vacuum cleaner that sucks out any loose dirt or dust from your carpet, a steam cleaner first forces very hot water deep into the grains of your carpet. This water loosens any kind of debris that it stuck deep in your carpet. The same water kills any pests or germs to completely sterilise your carpet.
After this, the steam cleaner then sucks back the water plus the dirt to leave your carpet clean and disinfected. However, some types of carpet cannot be steam cleaned, check for instructions before using a steam cleaner on yours.
How to Deep Clean Carpet with Steam Cleaner
First, prepare the area to be vacuumed.
Remove the furniture to get access to the whole carpet.
A steam cleaner needs space to reach all the parts of your carpet. For easy and fast cleaning, you need to clear the whole carpet area.
Keep your furniture safe.
As much as we emphasise that you clear the whole carpet area, we understand that some type of furniture might be hard to remove. Since we are working with steam, it can cause-effect on your wooden furniture.
Ensure you cover the vulnerable furniture with a polythene sheet or wax the soles to avoid the moisture during the steam cleaning process.
Vacuum your carpet first.
For effective steam deep cleaning, you have to deal with the loose debris and dust first. Pass a steam cleaner on your carpet to vacuum such dirt and dust. This shall give you an easier time later when steam cleaning.
Do away with stubborn patches.
In case you have some stubborn stains, you shall have to deal with them first. In this case, it is easier to get it cleaned using a carpet cleaner or a go-to stain remover.
All you have to do is to dab any of the two compounds thoroughly into the carpet on the spot with the stains then leave it for a while before you are set to clean the carpet with your stain cleaner.
How to Deep Clean Carpet with Steam Cleaner – The Cleaning Process
Having made the carpet ready for the cleaning process it is now the time to get into the actual process.
Fill your steam cleaner with water.
To begin with, you have to fill the water reservoir of your steam cleaner with water. The manual should dictate which type of water you are to use in the cleaning(whether ordinary tap water or distilled water).
With the reservoir full, you can jump start the heater with some little hot water.
Add your detergent.
If you had planned to use soap or any other detergent, it is time to add it. Depending on the set up of your machine you will have to add directly into the water tank or in the separate tank if available on your machine.
You can alternatively add vinegar to the water at a 50:50 ratio and mix it properly. This could save you some cash to add to its efficiency in the cleaning job.
Steam clean your carpet in this manner.
With your cleaner set for the job, you can now begin the job but on a properly planned route.It is advisable to begin cleaning from the furthest corner of your room. This is to make sure you do not make the cleaned area dirty by stepping on it.
Depending on your manufacturer’s instructions, there are different approaches to take on the cleaning process but a standard back-forth approach would work for many of the cleaners.
With this approach, you can now move over the whole room covering every single part of it.
To make this easy, It is advised that you overlap your lines of work which simply covers every part of the carpet. You can use attachments if any to make sure you cover every part of the room with much ease.
The process could take much of your time but the results are worth it. By this I mean, you have to take the process slow to make sure there is enough time for the machine to disperse, clean and suck leaving behind a precisely nice piece of work.
Leave the carpet to dry.
with this done, much of the work is over and now it is time to let your carpet dry.This is better facilitated when you open the windows and turn on the ceiling fan to ventilate the room making sure the carpet is drying faster.
Depending on the conditions you can give the carpet six to twelve hours for drying, preferably leave it overnight.
Assess your work.
After the given time, you can now move around the room on the dry carpet to check if the work is done properly and if there are still some stains, you better do some spot cleaning rather than have to wait for the next steam cleaning session.
Precautions
During the cleaning, it is better to keep your pets and children away from your working area to ensure they do not get hurt in the process of you trying to put your carpet in order.
Make sure no one steps on the carpet during the time allocated for drying. It is easier to inform the household so that no one is messing up the area work you’ve spent your time on.
Conclusion
Steam cleaning is an easy process to carry out. It seems harmless but you can consider some little precaution during the process like having protective on and keeping the pets away.
It is quite time consuming but yields great results with less work provided you give it some detailed forethought with much care during the process, considering that this guide will come a long way in helping you get your carpet cleaned. That is how to deep clean carpet with steam cleaner.
