Your home probably has both carpets and rugs throughout it. You might think that you can treat your carpets and area rugs the exact same. They do seem like they are made of the exact same materials, after all. However, treating your rugs the same as your carpet can lead to damage to your valuable area rugs. Here is why your area rugs are different from your carpets.
CONSTRUCTION
The biggest difference between area rugs and carpets is obviously how they are made. Area rugs are made to be easily picked up and moved around. Carpets, on the other hand, are meant to be placed in one location permanently. For this reason, rugs are constructed differently from carpets. The backing, stitching and other aspects of rugs all have to be different to allow the mobility of rugs. In addition, each separate rug may vary depending on where they were made, what material they’re made of, and the ideal use of the rug. For these reasons, they all require slightly different care.
DRY SOIL REMOVAL
One of the biggest construction differences is that most area rugs are made to be thicker with a dense pile, meaning they usually have more fibers closer together than standard carpet. This dense pile tends to trap dirt and soil near the base of the rug, where a vacuum cleaner can’t easily get to. If you have ever seen someone take their rugs outside to beat them, they are trying to remove these fine, trapped fibers. There is an easier solution though: just have a professional rug cleaner remove this build-up for you. They may do the cleaning in your home or at a facility, depending on the cleaner and the type of rug, but either way they will do a much better job than a vacuum at removing these fibers.
FRINGE
Rugs often have fringe, while carpets don’t. This might not seem like a big difference, however, fringe is delicate. It has to be treated specially, a concern that carpets don’t have. Vacuuming rugs with fringe can damage the fringe or even completely tear it off and ruin it for good. It is best to have rugs with fringe professionally cleaned, instead of trying to just avoid the fringe yourself. Professional cleaners use more delicate methods that are ideal for fragile rug fibers.
BLEEDING
Usually, carpets are a single color, or at least don’t have a discernable pattern. Area rugs, on the other hand, most often have multiple colors and patterns. If one of those colors were to bleed, the entire look of the rug would be completely ruined. Bleeding is a common concern with certain methods of carpet cleaning, so area rugs with patterns need to treated specially. When you get your area rugs cleaned, be certain to ask the technician if their solutions are safe and won’t make the dyes in your carpets bleed.
PROPER CLEANING OF AREA RUGS
As you can tell from reading all of this, area rugs aren’t the same as carpets and need to cleaned by an area rug professional, such as Chem-Dry of Greensboro’s area rug cleaning experts. We are the professionals you need to take care of your rugs and other carpets areas of your home or business!
