Gen­eral Guidelines

• Use a rug pad
• Vac­uum at least 1 time every week
• Address stains and spills immediately
• For heavy traf­fic areas, vac­uum the BACK of the rug at least once per year
• Rotate your rug 180 degrees every 1–2 years
• Have your rug pro­fes­sion­ally cleaned OUTSIDE of the home periodically

More Details…

Padding
Proper padding will pro­tect the rug by pro­vid­ing a cush­ion that absorbs heavy weight and impact, pro­long­ing the life of your rug. This is espe­cially true for hand-knotted rugs where the under­side of the rug has no back­ing. The yarn can rub on the floor and pos­si­bly cre­ate wear on the knots themselves.

Non-skid padding pre­vents your rug from bunching-up or mov­ing which helps pre­vent trip­ping. The pad also helps keep the rug at an even height for vacuuming.

Padding pro­tects the floor, damp­ens sound, and can pro­vide insu­la­tion from the cold.

Vac­u­um­ing, rota­tion, and peri­odic clean­ing
Remov­ing excess dirt slows down the aging process of the rug. Loose dirt, embed­ded in the rug pile, grinds the fibers which can cre­ate unnec­es­sary pre­ma­ture wear. As a note, most car­pet and rug pro­duc­ers rec­om­mend avoid­ing vac­u­ums with hard beater bars. This includes the Dyson. If pos­si­ble, dis­able the beater bar and use only suc­tion when vacuuming.

Feel free to vac­uum a high qual­ity rug as often as you like. It is ben­e­fi­cial to vac­uum the back of your rug as this removes the dirt embed­ded deeply in the pile, pro­long­ing the life of the rug.

Most rooms have a spe­cific use and traf­fic pat­tern that tends to wear cer­tain areas of the rug more than oth­ers. By rotat­ing the rug 180° every few years, you ensure a more even wear. Some dyes fade more quickly than oth­ers so rota­tion can keep the rug col­ors look­ing more bal­anced and even.

Stains and Spills

• Scoop up any solid mat­ter first, mak­ing sure to remove the mate­r­ial with­out rub­bing it into the fibers
• Blot up as much liq­uid as pos­si­ble using a clean white absorbent towel start­ing from the out­side of the stain and work­ing inwards
• Rinse care­fully with cold water, or some pre­fer club soda, using a clean cloth
• Blot dry with an absorbent towel, or use a cold air fan to com­plete drying…Patience is your friend!
• !Impor­tant! The rug must be thor­oughly dry before being put back on the floor!

wool­clean® Kit from the Wools of New Zealand©

Cre­ated for the fore­most wool research group in the world, wool­clean© is good for all types of spots and spills. It is easy to use and safe on all car­pet fibers.

The kit con­tains detailled instruc­tions for you to han­dle all types of stains.
Included are three dif­fer­ent com­po­nents for dif­fer­ent situations.

• The Spot Remover® for water based spills and spots
• The Spot Dry Remover® for grease and oil based stains and spots
• Absorb-it® which can be used ini­tially to help dry up spills or as the final step to help the dry­ing process

Con­tact us and order your kit…before you really need it!

Clean your rug Professionally

Have your rug removed and pro­fes­sion­ally cleaned peri­od­i­cally. Every 1–4 years is typ­i­cal, depend­ing on traf­fic and usage.

Never allow your wall-to-wall car­pet com­pany or other in-home clean­ing ser­vice to pro­vide more than spot clean­ing to your rugs. These types of clean­ing ser­vices can­not reach dirt embed­ded in the foun­da­tion. Pro­fes­sional clean­ing should only be done ‘off-site’.

Sisal and Sea­grass Care

Sisal, sea­grass, hemp, and paper have become fre­quently used floor cov­er­ings. These fibers are hydro­scopic, absorb­ing and releas­ing mois­ture depend­ing on the rel­a­tive humid­ity in their imme­di­ate envi­ron­ment. Although humid­ity is good for nat­ural fiber car­pets, sat­u­ra­tion of the fibers with liq­uids can cause unde­sir­able dimen­sional change. There­fore, steam-cleaning, wet sham­poo­ing, or any other method that involves water sat­u­ra­tion of the mat­tings is NOT rec­om­mended! For over­all clean­ing, spray-extraction method is rec­om­mended, using only the min­i­mum mois­ture set­ting on the machine. The clean­ing liq­uid should be applied by pres­sure and removed by vac­u­um­ing in the same work­ing cycle. Appli­ca­tion should be con­tin­u­ous, keep­ing the appli­ca­tor mov­ing to pre­vent excess mois­ture in any spot. Note that com­plete mois­ture extrac­tion is not pos­si­ble. The mois­ture pen­e­trates the fibers and its coarse struc­ture causes the absorp­tion of air. No water marks are vis­i­ble with this method due to the even appli­ca­tion of mois­ture. If the car­pet has been glued down, it should be deter­mined whether the adhe­sive is or is not water sol­u­ble before apply­ing moisture.

As with all car­pets, vac­uum reg­u­larly (suc­tion only is best), clean soil and spills imme­di­ately, and do not over­sat­u­rate with liq­uids. For water and water-based spills, blot with a clean, dry cloth and then cover with a thick layer of potato flour or Absorb-it® overnight. Vac­uum the next day.

Con­tact us with any ques­tions or recommendations.