Steam cleaning your carpet on your own or having a professional do it for you will go a long way in ensuring your carpet is looking its best. Although a typical carpet will need only a couple of hours or overnight to dry, it can sometimes take much longer. There are several factors to bear in mind when determining how long for steam cleaned carpet to dry?
How Long for Steam Cleaned Carpet to Dry
Your winter cleaning checklist may include carpet cleaning. Although there are many cheap ways you can clean your
carpet, it is crucial to consider steam cleaning carpet. In this post, we’ll discuss how long a carpet takes to dry after steam cleaning. We’ll also highlight the factors that affect the typical drying time.
Padding and Carpet Density
It goes without saying that a carpet that’s thicker and denser will take longer to dry. If you know your carpet better, you can always make special allowances for water that will remain in a dense carpet with heavier padding.
Room Ventilation
If you haven’t opened the windows or the room has no windows, to create cross ventilation, the level of evaporation is significantly reduced. Turning on the furnace blower or placing a fan in the room will dry the carpet faster by improving air circulation. You can also reduce drying times by turning on the air conditioner in warmer months.
Water Usage
Carpet cleaning pros say when extracting water from your carpet after the cleaning process, be sure to pass over the wet carpet several times with the vacuum/cleaner. Each pass you make extracts additional water from the carpet.
Weather Conditions
Carpets typically dry faster during warmer weather. While it’s well known that heat helps in evaporation, it’s also
important to consider the humidity levels. If the level of humidity is high, the carpet will take longer to dry as the air is saturated with moisture. If the humidity is low and the temperatures are high, drying times reduce.
Soiling
How soiled the carpet is before steam cleaning also influences how long it will take to dry because the carpet may require more water to be cleaned fully. This may not always be the case but it can have an impact on the drying time. Similarly, cleaning a heavily soiled carpet may require more agitation, pushing moisture deeper into the carpet fibers. As a result, more water may be required when applying the moisture before the extracting phase. All these will require more drying time due to additional moisture.
The Building
All things remaining constant, some homes or spaces just take longer than others to dry. It’s not clear why this may be the case but it could be related to how the structure retains heat or just plain ventilation.
Bottom Line
Whether you are cleaning your carpet by hand or steam cleaning, it is important to consider the time it takes your carpet to fully dry. So how long for steam cleaned carpet to dry? In general, it normally takes about two to six hours for a carpet to dry after it has been steam cleaned. However, the time it takes to dry is also influenced by the factors mentioned above. Under ideal circumstances, you want to stay off your carpet until it’s completely dry but sometimes that’s not practical.