When you were selecting the carpet in your home, you may not have thought much about how carpet contributes to your family’s health and well-being. Perhaps you were thinking style, colour, and durability. However, one of the greatest, but often overlooked benefits of carpet is its contribution to healthier indoor air quality.
Your carpet is the biggest filter in your home. Just like your washing machine filter or vacuum cleaner filter or air conditioning that filters out airborne soils that pass through it, your carpet does the same thing. During the autumn and winter months when your windows are rarely opened, it becomes a bigger issue.
Carpeting absorbs tracked in soil like dirt, asphalt, pollens, insecticides, bacterial matter, and fungus. This can be clearly seen with “draught marks”.
The black lines that appear on light coloured carpet around the skirting boards, under the doors and around cool air returns is called “filtration soiling” or “draught marks”.
The filtering process that your carpet provides keeps those soils from becoming airborne. These soils are trapped in the carpet. They are then removed with regular vacuuming and regular professional cleaning.
If you do not clean your carpet on a regular basis, the filter becomes full. Would you leave your air conditioning filters for years on end without replacing them or cleaning them? No. The cleaning industry at large has not done a good job of educating the public about these kinds of issues; therefore many consumers are uninformed of the impact.
Not maintaining your carpet not only leaves it exposed to permanent traffic area damage and permanent staining, but it contributes to an unhealthy indoor environment.
