Waiting too long to have your carpet cleaned is generally not a good idea. Dirt is an abrasive—like sandpaper. Every time you step on the carpet, you grind dirt into your carpet fibers. This cuts your carpet, just as if you had used a knife, causing it to wear out faster. A dirty carpet will not last nearly as long as a clean carpet. While vacuuming helps, by itself it's simply not enough.

Also, unlike the first generation of carpet produced many years ago, carpets today are designed to hide dirt and soil. So, if you wait until your carpets look "dirty" before you have them cleaned, you've waited too long. The longer you wait to have your carpet cleaned, the more damage you do to your carpet and the faster it wears out.

No. As you probably know, outdoor air contains pollens, fungus, bacteria, air pollution, cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and hundreds of other chemicals. When you and your family members come into your home, you carry those pollens, bacteria and chemicals in your hair and on your skin, clothing and shoes. Not surprisingly, all those chemicals, pollens and bacteria wind up—you guessed it—in your carpet.

If you have allergies, asthma, emphysema, or other breathing problems, one major source of your problem could be the pollens, fungus, and chemicals in your carpet. Cleaning your carpet helps to get rid of pollens, fungus, bacteria, chemicals and the tars and residue from tobacco smoke.

In addition, as you may know, tobacco smoke contains over 4000 different chemical compounds, 43 of which cause cancer. And even if you don't smoke, those chemicals get on your shoes, you track them in to your home and you leave them in your carpet. If you're sensitive to cigarette smoke, you might find that you'll breathe easier after you hire a company to get those harmful chemicals out of your carpet.

Carpet cleaning professionals utilize either dry cleaning or hot water extraction.

Keep in mind that "dry cleaning" is a bit of a misnomer. Most people think that dry cleaning your carpet is like dry cleaning your clothing, but in reality all carpet cleaning methods use water in one form or another. The three methods of dry cleaning are dry foam, dry-chem, and dry compound.

When a carpet cleaner uses dry foam, he applies shampoo to your carpet, allows it to dry, and then sucks the dried shampoo into a vacuum. Can you imagine applying shampoo to your hair, allowing it to dry and then removing the shampoo from your head with a vacuum? This method can leave a residue in your carpet, which is one reason dry foam is not very effective.

The dry-chem method is similar to dry foam. The major difference is that when dry-chem is used, the company sets a large cotton bonnet on your carpet. Using a machine, the bonnet spins from side to side, absorbing the dirt that's in the carpet. After the bonnet is saturated with dirt, another cotton bonnet is applied. Bonnet cleaning is like trying to use a large towel to rub the dirt out of your carpet. Like dry foam, it's not very effective.

The dry-compound method spreads an absorbent mixture that looks like wet sawdust all over your carpeting. Then the machine brushes the mixture into the carpet, which in theory causes dirt to absorb into the mixture. When the mixture has dried, a vacuum cleaner sucks the material out of the carpeting. Because the carpet is not rinsed in any way, this method is not very effective.

All Seasons technicians will most often employ the hot water extraction, which is a fancy way of saying that a hot water cleaning solution under high pressure is forced into the carpet and then sucked out of the carpet. This method is also referred to as steam cleaning even though steam is not used. It's the only method that thoroughly cleans your carpet of dirt, harmful bacteria, fungus, chemicals, pollens and tobacco residue.

Not true. Many companies own hot-water cleaners, but a large number of employees don't know how to use them. You probably know someone who bought the newest computer on the market but didn't learn how to use it for a year or more. The same is true with carpet cleaning machines. The company may own good equipment, but the employees may not know how to use it correctly. This is why it's important that you choose your carpet cleaner carefully.

The best carpet cleaning companies are those that have been certified by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, known as the IICRC. A carpet cleaning company cannot buy this certification. The carpet cleaner must earn the certification through study, experience and the successful completion of formal, written examinations. Cleaners who are certified by the IICRC have, in effect, earned a degree in carpet cleaning.

The IICRC provides written credentials to the companies it certifies. Before you choose a carpet cleaner, ask to see written proof of the company's IICRC certification.

Carpet cleaning promotions and pricing offers may not be as good as they initially appear. First and foremost, the price you see offered may not be for the services you want performed. Before you select a company, decide what you want to accomplish. If you want the carpet cleaner to remove only some of the dirt, you can choose from hundreds of companies that use small shampooers or other cleaning methods. Or, you can even rent a machine at the grocery store and do the job yourself.

On the other hand, if you want your carpet thoroughly cleaned—if you want to remove the harmful dirt, bacteria, pollens, chemicals and tobacco residues—then you need to hire a company that uses a hot water cleaner mounted in a truck. This is the only way to assure that your carpet remains healthy and free from dirt, disease-causing bacteria, and hurtful chemicals.

Also, keep in mind that the price you see advertised may not be the price you pay. Many homeowners have learned that the low price they saw advertised was not the amount they were charged. Some carpet cleaners offer a cheap price, then pressure the customer into paying a lot more once they get inside your home. Some of them may even break the law by using illegal bait and switch tactics.

Then you'll find other carpet cleaners — professionals like the technicians at All Seasons who work hard to earn your trust and respect.

It's difficult to provide an accurate estimate over the phone. First, honest, reputable carpet cleaning companies usually price carpet cleaning by the square foot. To quote the exact cost of cleaning your carpet, I need to know the exact number of square feet that you want cleaned. To get an accurate measurement, I have a measuring wheel I use to calculate the exact size of the carpet area.

You'll be glad to know that the carpet area to be cleaned is not nearly as great as most people think. For example, if you want your entire home cleaned and your home is 2000 square feet, the amount of carpeting to be cleaned might be only 1200 square feet. This is because most home measurements are outdoor measurements. Plus I deduct the area taken up by walls, room dividers and the like. The result is that the actual area to be cleaned is usually only about 60% of the square footage of the home.

So even though I can't give you an exact quote over the telephone, here are things I consider when quoting a price.

First, the type of carpet. Certain types of carpet are harder to clean than others. So before I can give you a quote, I need to know the type of carpet you want cleaned.

Second, the amount of soiling. Carpet that hasn't been cleaned for ten years will take longer to clean than carpet that was cleaned within the last six months.

Third, the amount of furniture that has to be moved. If we have to move your furniture, the bid must include that labor. But if you move your furniture, you'll save money.

To recap, I consider the type of carpet, the amount of soiling, and the amount of furniture that has to be moved. So, as you can now imagine, every quotation is different.