Will My Carpet Get Dirty More Quickly After It Has Been Washed?

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One comment that you may hear from time to time is .. “I washed my carpet using a carpet washer and, it certainly got much cleaner, but it got dirty again really quickly” .. or something along those lines.

This can certainly happen – but it is entirely avoidable. The culprit is the detergent. It attracts dirt – that’s how it works. The water and detergent are injected into the carpet, the dirt is attracted and collected and then removed.

The problem of carpets quickly becoming dirty after washing tends to have two main causes:

1. Too much detergent is used resulting in a detergent residue in the cleaned carpet. The detergent then does just what it’s supposed to do and attracts and traps dirt. The end result is that the carpet quickly begins to look dirty again.
2. The detergent is not fully removed from the carpet after cleaning and the results are the same as item 1 above.

If you experience this phenomenon after cleaning your carpets, then there are a couple of things you can try.

Use a little less detergent in your cleaner than the manufacturer recommends. You may need to experiment a little to find just the right quantity to use – but as a rule, manufacturer’s recommended dosages tend to be fairly generous and using a little less will probably still get your carpet perfectly clean.

Make sure that you remove as much of the detergent, water and dirt as possible in order to minimise any detergent residue in the carpet after cleaner. Pass the cleaner slowly over the carpet whilst removing the dirt and, if you have previously had problems with cleaned carpets becoming dirty again quickly, give any heavy traffic areas a couple of extra passes with the cleaner just to be on the safe side.

You should also follow the manufacturer’s recommendations regarding drying time of your carpets following cleaning. Depending upon the cleaner used, these can be relatively short these days – but check the instructions. Making sure that the area is well ventilated will also help speed things along.