How to Clean an Area Rug

Is your area rug looking a little dirty and in need of some TLC? We’re going to show you how to clean your area rug without having to hire professionals to do it. It can feel like quite a task, especially if you have never cleaned the area rug yourself before, but when we break it down step by step and you have a plan of attack, you’ll see that you can handle this job on your own.

Just cleaning the rug with a vacuum cleaner periodically can keep it looking tidy most of the time, but when it starts to discolour, you’ll need to take your cleaning more in depth.

Prepare a Work Area

It’s best to clean your area rug outside in the fresh air. That’s because they’ll likely be a lot of dust that you don’t want to spread around your house. This also gives you plenty of room to work, since cleaning a large rug can be difficult in a confined space. Choose a day that is warm and sunny, if possible, and that way the rug will be able to dry out more easily.

You want to prepare a large area outside to work on the rug, like a patio or porch. Make sure the area is well swept and cleaned. It’s also a good idea to choose an area that gets plenty of sunshine. If you can’t get both of those in one area, you can always clean the rug in a large flat area outside and then hang it out in a smaller area with plenty of sunshine.

If you don’t have a large flat space, you can hang it over a bench, railing, or fence.

Clean Out the Dust and Dirt

Now it’s time to get rid of the big particles on your rug, cleaning out the dirt and dust that have accumulated there. You can use a vacuum cleaner for this job, but you’ll save yourself a lot of work if you start by beating the area rug out first. You can beat it with your hand or with a long piece of wood, like a cricket bat or a broom handle. If you’re going to beat the rug, you should wear a face mask to keep yourself from breathing in any dust.

Once you beat a lot of the dirt out, you can then vacuum the rug clean. work from top to bottom, vacuuming both sides of the rug until no more dirt and dust is being sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.

If you’re spending a lot of time vacuuming up dirt on the rug, you may want to beat it out some more before you continue vacuuming. This will save you some time.

Shampoo the Carpet

The next step is to apply shampoo to the carpet, but you need to be careful about the shampoo you use, if you’ve never tried it on that particular rug before. If you are having a professional home cleaning service do this work, ask them about the shampoo they are using suggests Nicole with New York House Cleaning. Area rugs can be made of different materials that may not always react very well to shampoos and other cleaners. It’s best to do a spot check in one edge of the rug. Just apply a little shampoo there and see how the carpet reacts.

For most carpet shampoos, you’ll need to mix the shampoo with a little water and rub it into the rug. Let it sit there for a few minutes and then rinse it off. If there’s no adverse reaction (such as reading colours, bleaching, fading, or visible damage), then you can continue with the shampoo and clean the entire carpet. Follow the directions carefully that are on the carpet shampoo bottle, as they may differ from one product to another.

You can also try mixing your own carpet cleaner if you want to make sure you’re being very gentle on your carpet, using mild cleaners and natural chemicals that are effective at removing stains. The kind of cleaner you should use will vary depending on the type of material your rug is made from.

Make sure you leave the shampoo on for as long as the instructions require, and then you can rinse the rug thoroughly. Ensure that the shampoo is completely washed off before you leave off rinsing. If the shampoo is left on to dry completely, it could cause damage to the rug or make the material feel strange.

Let the Rug Dry

Now you need to let the rug dry out, and you can help it to dry faster by laying it out on an elevated surface that is exposed to the sunshine. If you are able to, squeeze as much water out of the rug as possible before allowing it to dry.

You may need to remove the rug to a protected place for it to dry, like inside your home on a concrete or tile surface. You don’t want any bugs or dirt getting on it, and you don’t want birds doing their business on the rug either. You also have to keep the rug safe from any adverse weather.

The Final Step

The last thing you need to do is vacuum the area rug one more time. This probably won’t pull out any more dirt for you, but it is a great way to make the carpet look tidy. The shampooing and drying can cause the fibres to flatten out, and vacuuming the rug once more will help to make them stand up and look neat. Once you’re finished with that final vacuuming, the area rug will have a neatly brushed appearance.

You can do the final vacuuming step once the rug is back inside your home on the floor again.

How often should you do a deep cleaning like this? It depends on how much use the carpet gets and how dirty it becomes. If it is visibly dirty after vacuuming, then a deep clean is advisable.