Why Carpet Effect Air Quality (and How You Can Improve It)
A friend of mine was sharing a story about how bad his sinus congestion was flaring up after moving into a new home. He tried having the air filters changed and even hired an HVAC company to clean the air ducts, but his congestion continued to get worse.
Finally when he told me about his issues, I recommended he have his carpets cleaned. He was surprised and asked me ‘Does carpet affect air quality?’. The answer is that carpets collect just as much yucky stuff as your air ducts, and many of our clients suffered from bad air quality until having their carpets cleaned.
He decided to give it a try, so we scheduled a carpet cleaning and within a week, his congestion started improving.
Now as a full disclaimer, we can’t guarantee that your sinus issues will disappear after carpet cleaning. But we’ve had several clients let us know that they could tell a difference in their overall health simply from us steam cleaning their floors.
Why is that?
Your Carpet Is Your Home’s Largest Air Filtering System.
That’s right. Your carpets collect more dirt and gross stuff than your air ducts or air filters. For one, dirt and dust have an easier time settling downward as they’re pulled by gravity. Two, your floor acts as one giant filter with the yarns attracting and retaining dirt and dust, more so than your air filtering system.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that any breathing issues are solely because of your carpets, but they do play a big part in it.
Is Carpet a Bad Idea for Air Quality?
Carpet in itself isn’t a health concern for people. It’s really how often they’re cleaned that determines their effect. Even if you have hardwood floors, you’re still going to attract the same amount of dirt and dust inside your home. Carpet actually helps keep dust from becoming airborne as much, compared to hard surface floors, as long as they are regularly cleaned.
What Stuff Does Your Carpet Attract?
There’s quite the list of filth that your carpet collects over time, including:
- Soil, sand, dirt from outside
- Oils from humans
- Organic matter
- Pet hair and dandruff
- Mites and other small bugs
- Germs and bacteria
When your carpet is neglected, these are all substances that can irritate your sinuses, cause breathing issues and have serious physical effects.
Maintaining Your Carpet by Vacuuming
One of the best things you can do for your carpet on a regular basis is vacuuming it using an upright vacuum. We don’t recommend using floor attachment vacuum because it won’t agitate the floor fibers as much as an upright will.
Use a HEPA certified vacuum that will keep the dirt and dust from escaping back into the air again. Try making it a point to vacuum at least once per week. This will remove most of the heavy particles like soil and sand.
Improving Air Quality Through Carpet Cleaning
You’ll also need to schedule a professional carpet cleaner at least once per year. At Always Green Carpet Cleaning, we use steam extraction to help kill germs and remove oils and other filth build up. This keeps all that gross stuff from saturating the air in your home which keeps you from breathing it in.
If you think about it, on any other filtering system in your home, you have it regularly cleaned – air filters, vacuum filters, dryer filter – even your coffee filter! Your carpet is no exception, except you don’t have to worry about replacing it all the time. As long as you stay on top of vacuuming and scheduling regular carpet cleaning, you can significantly improve the air quality of your home.
Contact Us Today
We care about our clients and their air quality. If it’s been a while since you last scheduled a carpet cleaning, give our friendly team of experts a call so we can provide you with a free quote!
