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Repairs & Maintenance   -   Maintaining Your Home

      Guidelines for General Carpet Maintenance

Residential

• Use mats placed at all entrances to keep soil from being tracked into the house. Change or clean these mats as they become soiled.
• Remove spills on your carpet promptly. Spilled material can permanently stain or discolour your carpet when left unattended for very long. Blot liquids. DO NOT SCRUB THE AREA!
• The most important maintenance step is proper and regular vacuuming. You cannot over vacuum. In fact, high traffic areas should be vacuumed at least once a week. It is best to use a vacuum with a beater bar and brush on cut pile carpet. A suction only vacuum may be required to prevent fuzzing on wool loop pile carpet.
• Help to reduce airborne pollutants by changing your furnace filters regularly and cleaning your furnace and vents annually.
• Have carpets hot water extracted every 12 to 18 months for high traffic areas, and 18 to 24 months for other areas.

Commercial

Soil Control:

• Maintenance of entry walkways - regular sweeping and/or cleaning of hard surface areas that lead into a building.
• Use walk off/entry mats - entry mats should be placed at most locations and changed regularly.
• Restriction of food services to designated areas will help reduce soiling throughout the office area.
• Chair pads - under desk pads prevent damage to carpet and prevent casters from grinding in dirt.

Interim Maintenance:

• A vacuuming schedule is the single most important part of any maintenance program. All carpet in high traffic areas should be vacuumed daily.
• Train a staff member to clean spots as they occur.
• Have carpets restoratively cleaned on an as needed basis or to keep a consistent high appearance level. Have a carpet maintenance program put in place as recommended by most major fibre producers and carpet mills.

Soil Filtration Lines

The most commonly asked question when carpet cleaning inspections are being performed is "Can you get rid of the black lines on my carpet along the walls?"

The movement of air across or through the carpet causes these filtration lines. Air carries particles of various pollutants such as dirt, soot, smoke and dust. The carpet pile yarns act as a filter trapping these particles as the air passes through them. These particles are microscopic and can penetrate deep into yarns.

The degree of removal of these particles depends on factors such as type of soil, amount of airflow, length of time soil has built up, colour of carpet and type of fibre yarn. Special cleaning techniques, used by a professional carpet cleaner, can usually remove these lines from synthetic carpet. However, on light-coloured carpets some traces of soiling may remain.

It should be noted that these lines are difficult to completely remove from wool or olefin carpeting.

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Return to: Maintaining Your Home

Glenys has answers to your questions and more professional tips to make your real estate transaction more pleasurable. Call or e-mail Glenys or click on "Ask Your Own Questions." Glenys can send you information on any Property Listed For Sale on the Multiple Listing Service in the Halifax area. If you would like her to help you locate a home, please fill out her Information Request Form. Surfing the Real Estate Board's web site or MLS.CA and found a house that you like but doesn't give you the civic address. Glenys can also help. Just fill out her Would like an address form, please ! Or perhaps you are considering selling your home in the near future, she can also offer you a Free No-Obligation Market Evaluation Form

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