Dark lines under your eyes? Maybe they’re just on your carpet. Here’s what causes that and how we get them out.
You’ll find these lines in front of floor registers, along baseboards, and next to the wall up your stairs. In some homes these lines can be very dark and are normally worse when candles are burnt often or there are smokers in the home.
We call these ugly marks filtration soiling lines. They are caused by slight air movements over these areas of carpet. Ever notice all the particles floating around in the air when a beam of sunlight comes through your window? You carpet is acting like a filter, cleaning the air of those particles every time a door opens or closes, your furnace kicks on, or when a strong wind blows outside.
We notice these concerns in newer homes because they are sealed to the outside so much better then old homes. But inside these homes there are gaps and cracks inside walls, between subfloors, and along stair supports. When there is a pressure change from one room to another, the air in your house slowly travels over the edge of your carpet through those gaps into the next room. This happens every day, continuously, all day long.
I’ve even seen squiggly lines directly under a fine window curtain that hung ever so slightly above the carpet. You see as the sun rose each morning it heated the air in the window bay. That air rose through the curtain rod hardware toward the ceiling. This pulled air in from the sides and from under the curtain. And, you guessed it, the carpet directly under the curtain filtered the air. Over the course of a year or so that line got darker and darker. It looked like a child had drawn on in with a charcoal crayon.
“Shouldn’t I be able to just vacuum that off my carpet?”
I wish. These are normally very difficult stains to remove. Those floating particles are floating in the air because they have a static charge and are basically lighter than air. When they move across the carpet they bind with an electric charge to the carpet. No vacuum is strong enough suck them of the fibers.
How we get rid of dark lines
It’s not easy, but we have a way to take care of these lines. There are three keys; the right cleaning agent to break the static charge, agitation, and lots of flushing. By the way, we guarantee removal of soil filtration lines or you don’t have to pay.
Will they stay gone?
Unfortunately, no. If nothing is done to the structure of the home the lines will come back. To permanently keep them from coming back along walls, we can disengage your carpet and pull it back to expose the wall base plate. Then we will apply a bead of silicone to fill the gaps. But those lines under curtains, doors, closet doors, couches, etc. are just gonna come back. A few things you can do to extend the time it takes for the lines to form is get your air ducts cleaned, change your air filter regularly, and get your carpets cleaned regularly. Why the carpets? Your carpet is one giant filter. The more it is cleaned, the cleaner your house will stay.
So don’t lose sleep over these carpet woes and wind up with dark lines under your eyes. Call us and sleep easy.
