Caring for Oriental Carpets

Hand-knitted, high-quality oriental carpets can last for many years if cared for properly. In order for oriental carpet to maintain it’s beauty over the span of decades, it must be protected from water damage, fading and degeneration from an over-exposure to sunlight and chemicals in certain cleaning agents that aren’t appropriate for that type of carpet. In order to keep your oriental carpet looking and feeling like new, you must keep up with regular care and periodic deep cleaning.

As part of your everyday care, be sure to keep we plants and other items that produce moisture away from the carpet. This includes hanging plants that can drip onto the oriental carpet. When an oriental carpet gets wet and is not dried properly, the base of the carpet can warp and deteriorate. The adhesive can become brittle and cause the carpet to become unwoven and loose from the bottom up. For this reason, it is important to never keep an oriental carpet on floors that are subject to humidity, such as cement floors.

Be sure to rotate your oriental carpet a few times per year to ensure that it wears evenly. High traffic areas will cause the carpet to become noticeably damaged after a few months of heavy use.
Routinely turning the carpet will prolong its life and keep the wear to a minimum. Heavy furniture should not be placed on an oriental carpet because this can cause it to wear more rapidly. Be sure to have furniture pads on the legs of tables, chairs and sofas to keep the damage to a minimum. It will also help if you purchase carpet padding for underneath the oriental rug. The padding takes some of the stress off of of the placement.

Because oriental carpets are made of wool or silk, moths are attracted to it. Moths like to lay their eggs in fibers high in protein in dark areas, such as under furniture. The moths will eat the fibers of the carpet, causing irreversible damage. Be sure to vacuum your oriental rug at least once every two weeks to keep moths off of the carpet, but take care to vacuum gently. Don’t use a powerful brush vacuum. You may also need to vacuum the underside of the carpet, too. This can be done once every couple of months.

Try to keep your carpet out of direct sunlight. If there is a certain time of day when the sun shines directly on the rug, draw the blinds or pull the curtains closed. After prolonged exposure to sunlight, the color of the oriental carpet will begin to fade. This cannot be repaired. UV light causes irreversible damage to fabrics.

Every so often, you will need to call in the professionals to deep clean your carpet. They know the right process to wash the carpet and dry it properly without damaging the woven fibers in any way. A professional carpet cleaning company should always perform a deep cleaning on an expensive oriental carpet to ensure it retains its beauty for as long as possible.