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Carpeting and Your Health

When people think of pollution, they almost always think of the environment outside of their home. In truth, most houses are very unhealthy inside.

Carpeting and Your Health

It goes without saying that the health of you and your family is an important matter. Staying healthy is just a good idea and we are not even going to go into the cost of going to the doctor. To keep healthy, you take prudent steps by wearing a coat in winter, bundling up kids before they go outside to play and so on. This is all a matter of common sense, but most people fail to take equally important steps to insure a healthy living space.

There have been endless publications about how unhealthy it is inside of enclosed areas. The Environmental Protection Agency has even published guidelines on the subject. These guidelines, humorously, were probably inspired by the fact that the building housing the EPA was found to be one of the most unhealthy every inspected! Regardless, you home is a pollution pit and a threat to your health. The air can be stagnant and polluted. Carpets, bathrooms and kitchens are bacteria magnets. Mold, mildew and other nasty things also add to the inherent unhealthy atmosphere.

The carpeting in your home is probably a key part to the beauty of your home. It also, however, acts as a net for just about anything obeying the laws of gravity. Since everything obeys these laws, your carpet can quickly become a collection of dirt, bacteria, microscopic bugs, mold, mildew and even larger bugs. As time passes, this breeding ground becomes a veritable swamp of unhealthy things. Frankly, it can become a health threat to you and your family.

Cleaning your carpet frequently is the key to addressing health in a home. By vacuuming it frequently, you cut down on dust. Importantly, you need to vacuum the open areas AND under furniture. Yes, move it! While vacuuming helps a lot, it is also important to do a thorough wet cleaning of the carpets at least twice a year. Anti-bacterial cleaners should be used. Again, you will need to clear all the furniture out of the rooms in question and clean everything. Taking these two simple steps will make a noticeable difference in the quality of living with your air being cleaner.

If it is snowing outside, you will take the prudent step of wearing something warm before going outside. Well, your carpet is full of nasty ?snow?, so make sure to take prudent steps to protect yourself.

Enrique Cleanotto is with CarpetCleaningYeti.com - carpet cleaning information and companies.

A Guide of Berber Carpet

One of the more popular carpets on the market is the Berber carpet. Here is a guide to maintaining Berber carpet without destroying it.

A Guide of Berber Carpet

One of the most popular types of carpet available for home installation today is Berber carpet. Different from the synthetic high-traffic carpets of the 1960's and 1970's, or the high pile (fluffy) carpet of more recent years, Berber carpet offers stylish looks as well as durability. Berber carpet is not a specific type of carpet (such as wool or nylon), rather it is a weave of carpet consisting of dense small loops that can be in a patterned formation or a solid color. One of the biggest reasons that many people choose a type of carpet is ease of care.

Berber carpet prior to 1985 was typically made of nylon (a synthetic fiber) or a nylon/wool blend. These carpets were usually manufactured in light, neutral colors (such as beige or off-white) and were not very popular due to their light color. In 1986, Stainmaster (made by DuPont) was developed, and this coating went a long way to increasing the popularity of the carpet as it made maintaining it much easier. Also at this time, olefin, a type of synthetic extremely stain resistant fiber became readily available to carpet manufacturers. Berber carpets made from olefin were nearly stain proof, because except for oil based stains nothing could penetrate the fibers.

To make sure the Berber carpet in your home doesn't need frequent care, pick a Berber that's made of olefin and one that has a high density. While this carpet will resist dirt and stains better than others, once you do have to treat it, you'll need to follow a few simple rules. Since Berber carpet is so dense and closely woven, any stains that do penetrate it will be harder to remove. Also, the close weave will mean that once cleaned with a steam cleaner and solution, Berber carpet will take longer to dry than ordinary types of carpet.

Do not over saturate the carpet and be sure to pick a dry day to attempt to clean the carpet. Humid days mean that carpets will take much longer to dry. Depending on the time of year, you can also turn up your heat or air conditioning to allow the carpet to dry faster. You may feel tempted to make more than one cleaning pass on your carpet, but with Berber, it's important not to keep adding more solution into the carpet, because it will be harder to remove (vacuum out) and dry.

All and all, Berber carpet is one of the more durable versions on the market. You should not have too many problems maintaining it for years.