Why Should I Wait Before Walking On My Just-Cleaned Carpets?

Well, apart from the obvious (you’ll be plodding around in very damp socks!), there are a couple reasons why it really is worth waiting to walk on your carpets after they’ve just been cleaned.

1 – Protects the pile

When your carpets are cleaned, the pile gets washed out and plumped up to its new condition, so your carpet looks lovely and plush again. If you walk on it (especially on the heavy tread areas that take a pile-beating anyway), the damp pile gets flattened back down and may dry that way, which kind of defeats the objective of making it all lovely and fluffy again. You’ve probably seen this happen many times with your laundry – if you leave freshly washed laundry in the machine for long enough for it to dry, you end up with deep creases that even an iron struggles to remove.

The simplest solution is just to not walk on your carpets until they’re dry. If you absolutely must traverse them, try to stick to the edges (secret-agent-style), which aren’t usually walked on and so their carpet pile is more resilient than than the more frequently-traversed heavy traffic walkways.

2 – Damp fabric holds on to dirt

It’s exactly the same with damp clothes or even your damp kitchen rags – if you get dirt on them, the dirt tends to get wet and clings to the obliging fabric surface. On clothes, this is a relatively easy fix – you just rewash them. But do you really want to go to the trouble of having your carpets rewashed? And then you can’t walk on them for longer, and it’s all just a big, irritating disaster….

So how exactly do you get across the epic expanse of carpet while it’s still damp? Next week’s installment in our series will answer that in rip-roaring fashion.

In the meantime, if you’re ready to book your next carpet-preening session, give Stone Surface Specialists a call today on 801 856 0164 – we’ll have your carpets ship-shape in a jiffy!