How To Raise Flattened Pile Carpet
A brand new pile carpet is a thing of beauty. It’s flat, even, and looks perked up and elegant when you pick it up from the store. So what happens in the next few years to turn your rug from a gorgeous home surface into a flattened, dull-looking mess? In most cases, pile carpet suffers under the wear and tear of high foot traffic, not to mention a lack of professional cleaning from trusted places like Metro Chem-Dry. But if your carpet is looking especially haggard, it’s helpful to know the best ways to take care of it at home to keep it looking its best and prevent doing any further damage. Carpet pile is one of those types of carpet that suffers from constant pressure, which means that it needs a lot of attention and special care in order not to flatten out in a few years. If you’re dealing with a beaten-down carpet pile, don’t distress. Here are a few ways to keep your carpet looking like new in an instant.
Use Ice
You might not think it at first, but a simple ice cube is capable of working wonders on your rug. From lifting up hard-to-remove solid stains like gum to giving your pile carpet an extra perk, a small amount of frozen friction can do quite a bit when it comes to making your rug look new. If your carpet seems flattened in certain areas and not others, it’s probably due to a lack of furniture rotation. When a heavy piece of furniture sits on your rug’s surface for too long without being rotated out, it’s going to form a depression in your rug that might seem hard to remove. That’s where your ice cube comes in. Put your cube (or several cubes, if its a larger indentation) in the affected area and wait for it to melt. The cold water will fill the flattened fibers and give it a look of being fuller and less depressed. Once the cube is fully melted, you can use a sharper tool like a comb or hard bristle brush to “perk up” the fibers so that they stand up stiffly. They’ll dry in place, and you’ll be left with a rug that’s totally even on the surface.
Comb It Out
Even if you’re not dealing with indentations from furniture, your pile carpet can suffer from a look of flatness, especially if it’s been in a high traffic area for too long. If you’re dealing with a long runner-style carpet, it’s easy enough to manually get your rug’s fibers to plump back up with brushing and combing. Even with a larger centerpiece rug, it’s not too difficult to go through and brush out your rug’s fibers by hand. Using heat or extreme cold, such as the ice cube mentioned earlier, is a good way to relax the fibers and help them become more receptive to manipulation. If you’re trying to give your whole rug the treatment, start by ironing over smaller sections with a damp washcloth on top and work your way along the length of the rug. If you’re trying to get your rug looking fresh and new, there’s no better combination than a hot iron and a damp cloth to bring your carpet back to its original splendor. Make sure your cloth is sufficiently damp so that the moisture and heat can work together to boost your rug’s fibers and don’t let your hot iron linger on any area for too long unless you want your carpet to catch some burn marks.
Clean Carefully
It might not seem like it, but the key to a healthy, long-living rug is thorough and consistent cleanliness. Whether you decide to take your rug in for a professional dry cleaning every few months, or attempt to tackle the project on your own, it pays to stick to a schedule. If you notice a stain, don’t wait for it to dry and matt down an area of your carpet. If you drop something solid, treat it with a delicate touch so as not to wear out or pull on your rug’s fibers. Perhaps most importantly, always vacuum your rug on the right setting. Too low, and you risk harming your rug and crunching down its fibers even more with each cleaning. Too high, and you risk barely catching any dirt. Doing maintenance on your rug isn’t hard, and it keeps you from having to do damage control in a few years when your rug starts to get a squished, unhappy appearance.
