There is nothing greater than having your carpet cleaned, it looks terrific and has a really nice scent.
The biggest concern by most people is how long do you have to wait before walking across it. Technically, you can walk across it right away, just not with your shoes on and make sure your feet are clean! Any dirt or grime from your shoes or feet will go right back into the wet carpet.
How long it takes for a carpet to completely dry depends on various factors. The type of carpet and the amount of soiling will have an effect on the drying time. Another factor, the method used to clean the carpet will dictate the drying time.
Here are two leading cleaning methods; Dry Cleaning & Steam Cleaning. Let’s look at these methods to determine how long it will take for your carpet to be completely clean.
Dry Cleaning
There are two different methods for dry cleaning carpets. One method uses a dry foam to clean the carpet, then the foam and dirt are both sucked up into a vacuum. The other method is the use of a cotton bonnet that spins from side to side, pulling up all the dirt within the carpet. Dry cleaning obviously uses little to no water so the dry time is extremely low. Keep one thing in mind, if you choose dry cleaning it does not give you the same deep cleaning results that that steam cleaning does.
With dry cleaning, almost all carpets have a zero wait time so your carpet is ready for immediate traffic. As a matter of fact, carpet cleaners refer to this method of cleaning as zero dry time. That is not always the case though. There are dry cleaning methods that use liquid detergents during the cleaning action that will take time to dry. Before jumping on a dry cleaning method, find out what type of dry cleaning method will be used and what, if any, detergent will also be used within the process.
Steam Cleaning
Because steam cleaning uses moisture to clean with, it will take time for your carpet to completely dry. Also, the weather conditions at the time of the cleaning and the atmospheric condition inside your home will effect the drying time and probably take an even longer period of time.
In a break down, the warmer the temperature, the faster it will dry. A hot summer day will take between 2 to 4 hours to dry with steam cleaning. A cold, rainy winter day is probably going to take a little longer than that to dry. The use of very hot water in steam cleaning will allow your carpet to dry faster because of evaporation and removing the liquid with a industrial vacuum. On the other hand, very thick, high-end carpets will take longer to dry than other carpets.