Save Money and Increase Your Home's Value with a Carpet Steam Cleaner

A few days ago I posted on 10 Cheap Fixes to Boost Your Home's Value tip #7 was as follows:

Look underfoot. Carpeting is another detail that can quickly update a home and make it look cleaner. A professional carpet cleaning is an inexpensive investment, especially if your rugs are in good shape and are neutral colors.

I made the following comment on this point:

My wife steam cleans the carpet every year (something she spent a day doing last week) and it looks great (even with two kids in the house, though we don't have any pets).

A reader asked about this in the comments, saying:

"My wife steam cleans the carpet every year"

Curious how you do this. Do you rent a steamer or own one? Any recommendations? We occasionally hire a company that does a good job and they are reliable, but the cost prevents us from doing it as often as we'd like (which is pretty often with three kids and two dogs).

So, I asked my wife the particulars about our steamer and here's what she had to say:

1. We bought our steam cleaner four years ago for approximately $200 (she couldn't remember the exact price and I didn't want to track it down).

2. Since then, she's cleaned the carpets in the house four times (once a year) and has also used it for spot cleanings here and there.

3. She felt like buying her own cleaner was the way to go. The ones that can be rented are "nasty" in her opinion (she's seen them in pretty bad condition and thought they would add to the dirt in the carpet, if anything, versus actually cleaning it.)

4. The other option is to hire a company to come in and clean the carpets, but then we'd be looking at a couple hundred dollars for ONE cleaning.

5. The machine is like new and still has several years worth of use left in it, so she thinks it will be the best investment in the long term.

6. She used to use a "recommended" cleaning solution with it, but this year switched to a natural alternative (some mixture of vinegar and water). She said it cleaned well -- even picking up soap residue from last year's cleaning (you could see the soap bubbles in the machine).

7. The one thing she'd change about our model is the way it cleans stairs. The hose is too short to reach all the way up the stairs (we need to move it in mid-flight) and the cleaning attachment at the end of the hose is too small. If she was buying again, she would be sure the new machine had a better way to clean stairs (though she acknowledges that stairs will always be a pain no matter what machine you buy.)

8. In addition to our use of the machine, we've had friends use the cleaner a couple of times, so it's been nice to help them out. However, the last time it was used by a friend was a bit of a pain as they had pets and my wife had to clean pet hair out of the machine for an hour or so.

So that's it. Her opinion is that buying your own carpet steamer is a great investment as it saves money over the alternatives, gives you the flexibility of cleaning when you want, and helps keep your carpets looking good (ours are seven years old and they look brand new).

Comments

[JB]

Thanks for the additional information. We are having our carpets steam cleaned today, but will look into buying a machine. Maybe this will be our last time to hire it out.

One additional piece of info...we borrowed a steam cleaner from a friend (I don't think it was you :-]) and it did an okay job on some pet stains. However, I think it's performance was effected by the age of our carpet (which is probably 8 years old). I think stain resistence deteriorates with age, so that may be a consideration when choosing your own machine vs. professional cleaning. The better the carpet, the better the cleaner will work.

[Terry]

If you have a large house, yes, buying a good steam cleaner is the long-term way to go. Also I agree that the machines you can rent are
NOT very good at the job.

I have only about 250 sq ft of carpet; a few months ago I had it professionally steam cleaned for $50 and was very happy with the results. I tried Craigslist and was astonished at how many individuals have vans and equipment to do this sort of work - there is a LOT of competition and many good deals to be had.

[Tj]

our "free" local paper has tons of ad's for carpet cleaning, most of which are 3 rooms for under $100. We got lucky and found a hoover for $10 in a rumage sale for a daycare. I clean the carpets 2-3 times a year with 3 kids and neutral carpet.

We used to have a dog that left stains. (bladder cancer) From what I've been told pet stains can get down into the wood and no matter how many times you clean the carpet the stained wood will release back into the carpet over time. The only fix is repairing or sealing the wood. We're saving to have our carpet removed and putting in hard wood.

[Tj]

Forgot to ask in my post. What is your wife's secret formula?

[FMF]

Not sure. I try to stay as far away from the machine as possible lest I be asked to run it. ;-)