If your carpets are to stay clean, fresh-smelling, and hygienic they need to be professionally cleaned on a regular basis. However, it's important to recognize that the carpet cleaning process does not end when the team from Steve's Carpet Care & Restoration pack up the truck-mounted steam cleaning machine and head back to the shop. You will still need to wait for the carpeting to dry. How long will that take? Read on to find out.
Things That Affect the Drying Time of Carpeting
Among the most common carpet cleaning questions professionals hear has to do with drying time - and understandably so. After all, you need to know when your home or office can return to normal. The thing is there is no single right answer to the question. As with many things in life, it depends on the particulars of each situation. The following are some things that can affect the drying time of carpeting.
The Experience of the Cleaner
If you hire someone who is new to professional carpet cleaning chances are it will take longer for your carpets to dry than if you hired experienced pros. Why? Because inexperienced carpet cleaners sometimes use too much water during the cleaning process and then fall short of vacuuming up all that waste. As a result, drying that should have taken something like 6-10 hours instead takes 24-48 hours, or even longer.
Carpet cleaning companies with vast experience cleaning all types of carpet fibers in all kinds of conditions will know exactly how much water to use and how to remove it all before they declare the job done. As a result, your home or office will be back to normal in the shortest amount of time.
The Weather
You can take steps to ensure you only have an experienced professional clean your carpets, but there is not a lot you can do about the weather. Speaking from our own experience at Steve's we love it when the weather is warm and dry because that helps to ensure the fastest possible drying time. However, some days Mother Nature simply doesn't want to cooperate.
On those damp, humid days the drying time of a carpet can be expected to increase as much as 25%, simply because it is more difficult for the air to absorb moisture from the carpet if it's already saturated. There are a few steps you can take, however, to help speed up the drying process, and we'll get to those in a minute.
The Cleaning Method
By far the best way to ensure minimal drying times is by using the process we employ at Steve's. This method entails using a truck-mounted steam cleaning machine which sends steam to an appliance held by the technician in the home or office. That appliance introduces the steam to the carpet and simultaneously removes dirt and wastewater, sending it to a waste tank in the truck.
Other methods, including off-the-shelf carpet shampooing products and rented wet vacs, are going to produce more mixed results and will often leave the carpet sopping wet, requiring a long drying-out period that may extend to several days.
Steps to Facilitate the Drying Process
Even if you choose to have your carpets cleaned by experienced pros there are steps you can take to hasten the drying-out period. You will find most of these methods particularly useful when the weather is damp and humid.
Open some windows
Opening windows will help get air moving through the house. In order to optimize airflow make sure you open windows on different sides of the house and that you keep any doors between those windows open as well. Just bear in mind that if it's cold or raining outside, opening the windows isn't going to help. But if it's warm and dry it could significantly reduce drying time.
Use fans
If there is a ceiling fan or fans over the carpeted area turning them on may hasten drying. If you do not have ceiling fans a regular upright fan will do. And if you have more than one upright fan, even better. Position them at different ends of the carpeting to create a vibrant air flow over the rugs.
Turn on the air conditioner
Air conditioners do not only cool the air, they also dry it out. For that reason, they can be a useful ally in your quest to speed up the drying time of your carpeting. Just be sure not to set the temperature too low because cold air does not absorb moisture as effectively as warm air.
Use a dehumidifier
If you have a dehumidifier or dehumidifier in your house they can be a big help when it comes to drying out your carpeting. Dehumidifiers are specifically designed to remove moisture from the air and they typically do a bang-up job of it. This makes them the perfect tool for helping to dry out your carpets faster. Just a couple of things: Leave the windows closed when using a dehumidifier to avoid pulling moist air in from outside. And don't forget to empty the water collection tank every couple of hours.
Words of Caution
The above tips will help minimize the drying time after your carpets have been professionally cleaned. But there are still a couple of things you need to be aware of when it comes to wet carpets.
If the carpet is not drying as fast as you would like, don't lose patience and start walking on it. You will complicate the drying process by compressing the fibers and you'll likely re-soil the carpet you just paid to have cleaned.
Wet or even slightly damp carpets can be quite slippery too. Any moisture you pick up from walking on carpeting that hasn't dried may cause you to slip and fall when you transition from the carpet to another flooring material like tile or hardwood.
If you must walk on the carpeting before it is completely dry use a pair of protective foot coverings. Most carpet cleaning companies keep some on hand in case they need to walk on the wet carpet and will be glad to give you a pair.
Need Carpet Cleaning in Arvada? Call Steve's
The team at Steve's Carpet Care has been helping the good people of Arvada keep their carpets looking and feeling great for nearly 45 years. We have the experience and expertise to handle any type of carpet of any size. The bottom line is if the carpet can be cleaned, we can clean it. For all your carpet care needs call Steve's at 303-530-4900.