Are professional carpet cleaners worth it?

Are professional carpet cleaners worth it? This is a question we get often. People are trying to figure out if they will rent a machine or have their carpets professionally cleaned. Professional carpet cleaners are worth it AND it’s worth it to have a small carpet cleaner or shop-vac that you use. They are not replacements for each other but they actually help each other. I would like all our customers to have a small way to clean an area in their carpet the moment something happens. Most carpet can look great most of the time if you have a small unit to address spots as they happen. If you don’t rinse out a spot when it happens then every time someone walks over that spot they are picking up a little bit of it on their shoe and walking it into the rest of the carpet. 

Here is the simple reason why professional carpet cleaners are worth it. Besides the selection of chemicals they have on the truck. Besides the power of the machine that they use. Besides the heat that the water can get to and the large amount of water they can use to rinse all the carpets. It’s really about the labor! If you use a small home carpet cleaner properly you will spend a good 6-8 hours cleaning a normal 2,000 square foot home. It has 3 bedrooms, a living room, hallway and office or dining room. That’s 6 areas that need to be cleaned and if done right take about 45 minutes to an hour each area. Also this is a labor that you do not normally do. It’s not back breaking, but it will wear you out because you haven’t done it before. For example if my buddy calls me up and wants to go running with me I’ll probably make 2-3 miles with him my first time out. My feet will feel like bricks at the end of the 3rd mile. That doesn’t mean I can’t run 5 miles if I work on it for a couple of weeks, it just means today I’ve not practiced enough to be ready to do that much running straight through. 

In my own home I actually will grab a small 5 gallon shop-vac when there is a spot in the carpet to clean up. I have a full carpet cleaning machine in the driveway but it takes too long to set up for just a little spot. I’ll have it all finished before I’ve pulled all the hoses into my home. But if I wanted to clean all my carpets then I would pull out the big machine. 

Think of it like this. Your home is like your yard. Your yard needs to be mowed. But what you mow it with will really affect the effort you need to use. If you have a commercial zero turn mower you will get an effortless smooth quick cut every time. If you have to mow your entire lawn with just a weed eater then you will have very sore hands and a hurting back by the time you are done.  A small personal carpet cleaner is just like mowing your yard with a weed eater, you can do it. It will just take a lot of effort.