First, you need to consider how hard you and your family are on your carpets. If you have rules in your household such as no shoes in the house, no food outside the kitchen, etc. then the chances for your carpet to get really dirty are less than if you have kids running around the house in dirty sneakers every day and people spilling food and drink often. In addition, if you have pets then your carpets need much more care. Pets drag in dirt and many other things on their paws and bodies. If you and your family including the pets are hard on carpets then you will need to use carpet shampoo more often than some.

Another factor to consider is the fabric your carpet is made of and how delicate it is. Some carpet fibers do not stand up well to vigorous scrubbing or brush action. If you have a carpet made of delicate fibers then you might want to consider shampooing it less often. You need to consider the life span of the carpet in your calculations about how often you will use the carpet cleaning machine.

A third factor to consider is cost. If you own your own carpet shampooer then the cost to clean your carpets is minimal. You only need to replenish your cleaning solution. If you choose to rent a carpet shampoo machine then the cost is only slightly more. You can usually rent a machine from your grocery store for about thirty dollars per day. However, if you hire professionals to clean your carpet, it could cost you significantly more. You need to take your budget into consideration before making the decision to shampoo your carpets.

After you have considered all of these things, you will find that most people shampoo their carpets about once per year. Every six months is a better choice for families with a lot of risk factors like pets and small children. Every two years is a possibility if the carpeted areas in your home are rarely used. In truth, most people just wait until their carpet is looking dingy and then shampoo it. However, I would not wait so long that your carpets look like the picture above. If your carpets get this bad, then it might be hard to ever get the stains out. Try to spot clean troublesome stains as they happen rather than waiting for y our annual or semi-annual carpet shampooing. As long as you properly rinse the carpet each time you use carpet shampoo and use the machine correctly, you can shampoo your carpet as often as necessary. Just keep in mind that frequent shampooing could cause the fibers to start to break or come loose.

The most common mistake that people make when they are shampooing their carpets is that they use too much carpet shampoo. If you leave any soap residue behind when you are finished, you could experience a problem called wicking. Wicking is when any dirt that was left behind deep in the carpet or any dirt that is underneath the carpet in the pad is attracted to the soap residue and then that mixture of dirt and soap rises to the surface. It is possible for your carpets to look even dirtier than they were when they started if you have severe enough wicking.

Leaving behind soap residue happens most often when there is too much shampoo is the cleaning mixture. When there is excess shampoo you get lots of foaming. Foaming can not only be bad in terms of the wicking potential, but also, the foam is not necessarily the best cleaning agent. You want a good mixture of shampoo and hot water to best clean your carpets. Some machines have reservoirs available for antifoaming agents. These additives are added to the carpet shampoo mixture to minimize the amount of foaming, but they do not eliminate wicking. Even if you get rid of most of the excess foam, there still could be too much soap in your cleaning agent.

Your best bet is to read the instructions on your carpet shampoo carefully and then use about half of what they recommend. You might not get as much foaming, but you will clean the carpet well. It might be necessary to run the shampooer over the carpets a second time since there will not be as much active ingredient in the cleaning mixture the first time. Then, you will need to go over the carpets a third time with nothing but water in the cleaning reservoir. This rinsing is necessary to get rid of any excess soap residue left behind. Keep rinsing until the waste water comes out clear and free of soap and bubbles. Even though this multi-pass method is slightly more work, it will be worth it when your carpet is beautifully clean and stays that way when you are done.

There are a few homemade carpet shampoo recipes can help with odor elimination. If you want to try to make your own carpet shampoo odor killer then the best product to start with is baking soda. Baking soda is commonly marketed as an odor neutralizer and people have been using it to kill odors in their refrigerators and freezers for years. The method of odor neutralizing employed by baking soda is pH buffering. Odors are typically acidic or basic in nature. Whenever odor particles encounter baking soda it neutralizes the extreme pH and as a result eliminates the odor. Another common home remedy for odor neutralizing is hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide works by killing the bacteria that causes odor. A combination of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda makes a paste that works extremely well against urine stains and mildew odors. That is why it is a good cleaner for large bathroom rugs.

Some commercial carpet shampoos utilize encapsulation as a means of odor neutralization. Febreze for example, is made of molecules that have inner pockets that are very attractive to odor molecule s. The odor molecules find their way into these pockets and then are encapsulated by the Febreze molecules. Then, the odor molecule is released when the Febreze molecule is engulfed with water. This is why Febreze is so good for clothing that you can put into a washing machine. However, it is not a good choice for carpet cleaning. Another choice is dry foam carpet shampoo that works on this same principle and is then vacuumed away. One thing you want to be careful of with odor neutralizing carpet shampoo is shampoos that contain perfumes. Sometimes these perfumes will just cover up an offending scent instead of actually negating it. In addition, the perfumes could react with the existing odors in unattractive ways and you might end up with an odor worse than what you started with.