Having carpets cleaned professionally–and regularly–will prolong their life, according to SMART Carpet. The entire SMART Carpet staff knows carpets, having served over 100,000 SMART Carpet customers since 1995 in an area now covering New Jersey, Staten Island and eastern Pennsylvania.

Even if carpets are vacuumed and spot cleaned religiously, the SMART Carpet team says there’s a toll that normal wear and tear takes on carpets. It’s caused by a build-up of microscopic dirt and oil particles that can only be removed by cleaning the carpet thoroughly, advise the professionals at SMART Carpet.

In fact, SMART Carpet recommends that most home owners have their carpets professionally cleaned yearly if possible. This is especially true if they have large families with young children and pets in the house, adds the SMART Carpet sales team.

If household traffic is lower, SMART Carpet staff advises that a cleaning every 18 months should suffice. According to SMART Carpet installers, the more regularly you have your carpet cleaned, the easier it is both to maintain it and to clean it next time.

Professional steam cleaning is the preferred method of cleaning carpets by most carpet manufacturers as well as sales and installation companies, including SMART Carpet. Most professional carpet-cleaning technicians use either portable or truck-mounted units, according to SMART Carpet staff, which are quite powerful while leaving no residue of detergent behind.

Another benefit of using professional cleaners, according to the carpet experts at SMART Carpet, is that the increased extraction power allows your carpet to dry faster than if you clean it yourself with a rental machine. Drying your carpet quickly is important, say the professionals at SMART Carpet. This is because wet carpets are very quickly at risk of mildew and mold, explains an SMART Carpet team member. Once a homeowner has spotted mildew, the fix is usually expensive, warns the SMART Carpet staff, most often requiring full carpet and even sub-floor replacement.