How to clean rugs. Basic tips and guidance.

How Pilgrim Payne offers total care for carpets

Rugs come in many shapes, colours and sizes. Some are economically priced and some are worth small fortunes. If the latter, it may be useful to learn a little more about how to clean rugs.

Quite often, careful removal of spillages by sponging with water, followed by blotting with tissues or kitchen towel may achieve an acceptable removal on certain rugs.

Rugs, just like fitted carpets should be regularly vacuum cleaned to remove soil and grit. Grit can have an abrasive effect on the pile or kelim of a rug and lead to premature ageing.

Rugs can be cleaned by either wet side (water based) or dry side (solvent based) cleaning processes, it depends on the composition of the rug pile and kelim or backing. Some rugs, such as polyester composition items can be successfully cleaned carefully by the owner at home or on site by basic shampooing and drying, although this has a more limited cleaning success than extraction or immersion cleaning.

Better quality rugs require more specialist care that cannot be achieved on location. They need to be taken away to a specialist rug cleaning plant so that the soil and any stains or damage can be inspected and the correct, spotting, cleaning and restoration can be undertaken. Colours and dyes in certain rugs may be fugitive and may bleed if not stabilised properly before cleaning commences. It is essential to use a rug cleaning company with a long and successful history of rug cleaning, where dedicated staff take care of valuable pieces.

Often, restoration or rug repair work is necessary to bring a fine rug back to it’s former glory.

Always use a company that is willing to let you visit it’s cleaning plant. In many cases your valuable rug may be given to a third party for processing. Only use a company which carries out the work itself.

You will find more on basic cleaning techniques in the blog on carpet cleaning. Always exercise great care when attempting rug cleaning yourself because certain fibres such as sisal, viscose and many others can be ruined by the use of water and their appearance may be damaged forever.

If you require a full periodic cleaning of your rugs you can call Pilgrim Payne for free advice and guidance on how to best care for them. If in doubt of any aspect of rug cleaning ensure that you contact a reputable company which covers it’s work by quality assurances and operates by a code of ethics. That way you will look after your rugs and your investment.

Any guidance in this article on how to clean rugs undertaken by the owner is carried out at their own risk.

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