What Is Deep Cleaning?

Deep cleaning is the process of removing dirt, allergens and debris deep beyond the surface level in your home. A common area of focus when deep cleaning your home is the floors. Flooring takes on lots of traffic, creating frequent wear and tracking in outside contaminants. Depending on the type of flooring you have, dirt and allergens can easily hide where vacuums and other maintenance solutions cannot reach or completely clean.

Upholstery and mattress deep cleaning is another key component to complete home health. After all, it’s the part of the house you cozy up to every day, whether you’re relaxing on your couch or resting in your bed. Deep cleaning your upholstery and mattress can rid these fabrics of unseen debris like dirt, dust and dead skin cells. A deep clean to these areas can even help improve air quality and alleviate allergy and asthma-related symptoms.

Maintenance Cleaning

Frequent maintenance cleaning can often be mistaken for deep cleaning. Maintenance cleaning is essential to reduce wear and tear on your floors. It involves weekly tasks to upkeep your household surfaces, while deep cleaning should be done up to twice a year. Removing dirt and debris regularly is key to prevent scratching on hardwood, tile and grout. Carpet fibers need regular vacuuming and protection because, without it, fibers can break down and weaken, allowing dirt and stains to become harder to remove. Maintenance cleaning helps keep your home tidy, but it’s important to note that it is not a substitute for deep cleaning.

How to Maintain Your Floor

Popular types of floor maintenance include vacuuming and the use of cleaning pads for mopping, sweeping and dusting. Vacuuming is an effective method for suctioning up surface-level filth like pet fur, dust and crumbs. It’s a convenient solution, but for total home health and care, you shouldn’t use vacuuming as a replacement to deep cleaning.

Deep cleaning your floors makes a noticeable difference and extends the quality and durability of your flooring. Look at the side-by-side comparison of a deep carpet clean versus a standard vacuum. With vacuuming, you get the easy-to-reach gunk, but with deep cleaning, you relieve your carpets of irritating allergens and stubborn spots.

With tile and grout flooring, it’s easy to grab a cleaning pad and scrub with a store-bought cleaning solution. This can give your floors an instant shine, but does not truly restore the condition of the floors. Watching a cleaning pad versus a professional deep clean for tile and grout shows the big difference between maintenance cleaning and deep cleaning.

Grout lines are often difficult to clean. Cleaning pads can do an adequate job of reaching stains and debris on the tile, but professional deep cleaning attacks between grout lines to get all the nitty-gritty. Additionally, a smart choice to restoring grout lines involves sealing open pores to keep out soil. Household alternatives to professional sealing or coating can actually attract or trap soil on the floor surface. Overall, vacuuming and the use of cleaning pads are efficient at maintaining floors, but these types of cleaning need to work together with deep cleaning for optimal home health and care.

How to Maintain Fabric Sofas and Chairs

Upholstery maintenance is necessary for taking care of your furniture around the house like couches and ottomans. Different upholstery fibers play a major role in how it should be properly treated, so it’s important to know the fiber type before applying cleaning agents. Delicate fabrics can easily get damaged if you use incorrect maintenance cleaning methods. Some easy-to-follow tips for upholstery maintenance cleaning include:

1. Vacuum regularly   
2. Damp dust periodically with non-damaging cleaning solutions
3. When treating soiled areas, thoroughly flush cleaning agents
4. Clean areas seam-to-seam to reduce moisture rings
5. Speed dry fabric
6. Avoid over-application of moisturizers that contain harsh chemicals

By following these simple tips, you can ensure you’re treating your upholstery correctly and keeping it in its best condition until it’s next deep cleaning. Deep cleaning your upholstery is needed to avoid long-term damage to the color or texture of the fabric.

Placing cushion covers in the washing machine can help maintenance, but this does not yield the best end-result and should not be mistaken with deep cleaning. With professional cleaning services, you get your upholstery cleaned by highly-trained technicians who use specifically-designed products to maintain the fabrics ideal performance. At Stanley Steemer, our technicians use EPA Safer Choice cleaning solution that’s safe for kids, pets and the environment.

Air Duct Maintenance

Another form of maintaining and deep cleaning your house is through air duct cleaning. Air ducts, or vents, circulate air throughout your home, but that’s not all they do. They also circulate dust, dirt and allergens when they aren’t thoroughly cleaned. In fact, the average home collects up to 40 lbs. of dust and allergens within their air ducts every year. This build-up can clog your vents and keep your HVAC system from working properly.

For cleaning air ducts, there are small steps you can take to keep contaminants from getting into your air ducts by cleaning your air duct grates. This is especially important for households with pets, family members with allergies or asthma, smokers, and for homes that are going through renovation and remodeling projects. Cleaning your air duct grates should be done on a weekly to monthly basis. This involves tasks like dusting your grates, using compressed air to push out the dirt, running your grates through the dishwasher, repainting for a restored look, and soaking the grates in hot, soapy water. You can also help clean the air in your home by regularly replacing your air filters in your HVAC system.

These are not only vital procedures to take to maintain your home’s health, but also to ensure the best possible clean and sanitation, you should professionally deep clean your air ducts every 3-5 years. Air duct deep cleaning will reduce air pollution in your home and improve overall air quality. This will be a relief to asthma and allergy symptoms induced by dust mites. Lastly, deep cleaning your air ducts will maximize efficiency and flow of air in your home which helps save money on your utility bills.

Maintenance Cleaning Tips

It’s critical to create a balance between maintenance cleaning and deep cleaning. You can’t really have one without the other. Below are even more tips and tricks for easy measures to take for maintaining the cleanliness and tidiness of your home:

1. Take your shoes off when entering your home
2. Before cleaning, inspect surfaces and floors to find potential issues
3. Vacuum regularly -- anywhere between twice a week and every day depending on your home’s traffic
4. Use carpet protectants like Teflon to repel stains and make a deep clean last even longer
5. Clean up spills as soon as possible so they don’t absorb and settle into microfibers
6. Dust and sweep hardwood and tile before using liquid solution to prevent the spread of dust and dirt

Deep Cleaning Checklist

To stay on top and organized with your deep cleaning, use this checklist as your back pocket guide:

• Have your floors professionally deep cleaned at least once a year
• Have your upholstery deep cleaned at least once or twice a year
• Have your mattress deep cleaned at least once a year
• Have your air ducts cleaned every 3-5 years as recommended by NADCA (the National Air Duct Cleaners Association) Note: This number can change depending on your household size and conditions, but our technicians always inspect air ducts before cleaning.