Floor Care
Vacuum Cleaning
When it comes to soiling, preventative maintenance starts with vacuuming and must begin long before any soiling becomes apparent. Routine vacuuming is the most important aspect of your preventative maintenance program.
Because today's carpet fiber configurations are designed to hide soils it is very important to vacuum your carpet on a routine basis. This is especially true since most soil is gritty in nature. These gritty soils can abrade your carpet's face fibers, causing your carpet to become dull, delustered and matted in appearance. Remember: Soiling is an everyday and cumulative process! Because of this, regular vacuuming is absolutely essential. A good vacuum cleaner will prolong the appearance and performance of your carpet, and help significantly to refresh your indoor environment.
The following vacuuming schedule is recommended for residential end-use:
- Light traffic: vacuum the traffic lanes twice weekly and other areas once a week
- Heavy traffic: vacuum the traffic lanes daily.
Three to five vacuum passes are recommended, changing the direction of the vacuum frequently to help lift the carpet's pile and reduce crushing and matting. More frequent vacuuming is typically required in room entrances and other high traffic areas. Don't forget to vacuum the perimeter of your rooms to remove debris that can cause filtration soiling to occur. Because of their big loop construction Berber styles tend to be prone to vacuum chatter. So too can dense cut pile carpets. To avoid vacuum chatter we recommend that you vacuum your carpet at an angle to the carpet's pile direction and use overlapping vacuuming strokes.
After vacuuming your carpet you may notice shading and vacuum cleaner marks. This visual effect is a result of temporary random reorientation of the pile yarns during vacuuming, often causing light to reflect differently from the tips of the pile fibers compared to the side of the pile fibers. This condition is an aesthetic quality of your carpet referred to as shading.
Beaulieu recommends the use of vacuums equipped with a rotating brush or beater bar and brush for use with most carpet to loosen deep embedded soils. Certain carpet constructions such as Frieze, Shag and Berber tend to be sensitive to brush agitation, which can cause the pile yarns of these carpets to burst and become fuzzy. Beaulieu recommends suction-only vacuum models or vacuum models equipped with an adjustable brush and beater bar that can be placed where it will not come in contact with the carpet's pile yarns. Vacuums should be adjusted to the correct height setting for these carpets. The easiest way to do this is to raise or lower the beater bar and brush until the contact made is only enough to slightly agitate the carpet's pile yarns. If the vacuum motor slows during vacuuming the height setting is too low and the vacuum will damage the carpet. Vacuums that have been set too low also lose air flow, which is required to obtain the lift needed to remove soils and debris from your carpet.
Vacuum cleaners are often sold based on an assortment of measurements such as airflow, amps, and horsepower. While these measurements have some value they do not necessarily determine a vacuum model's cleanability, durability or filtration efficiency. Vacuum models equipped with replaceable paper bags and vacuum models equipped with micro filtration bags are much more effective in trapping very small particles, including dust mites and other allergens, and are recommended over vacuums equipped with cloth bags. In order to ensure that your carpet is cleaned by vacuum makes and models that meet stringent standards Beaulieu requires you to use a vacuum that has been tested and certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) Green Label Testing Program for Vacuums. For information and listings visit the Carpet and Rug Institute at www.carpet-rug.org.