How often should you vacuum your home?

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Everyone has their own personal levels of comfort at home – some people can’t relax unless the place is spotless, while others are able to turn a blind eye to a little mess and enjoy that ‘lived-in’ feeling. Knowing how often you should be vacuuming your home can be tricky if you're not a flooring expert, but regular vacuuming is a necessity for a hygienic, happy home, and can prolong the life of some types of flooring.

This guide will explain how often you should vacuum different types of flooring, and how often different types of household should be hoovering. We’ll offer simple advice on maintaining your home, and talk about ways to keep your flooring looking fresh.

In this guide:

How often should you hoover?
How often should you vacuum different flooring?
How to hoover effectively
How often should pet owners vacuum?
How often should you vacuum if you live alone?
How often should you vacuum a room you don’t use?

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How often should you hoover?

There’s no hard and fast answer to the question: ‘How often should I hoover?’ It depends on several factors: for instance, how many people or pets live in your home and how active they are. A single person who’s out at work all day is less likely to spend time on a carpet as much as a baby or energetic toddler! On the other hand, you may have a house full of muddy boots or sports equipment, pets that shed fur, or a home near a busy road.

One thing’s for certain: regular vacuuming is a necessity to preserve the life of your carpet or flooring, and it can help to get your home guest-ready.

Most household dust is made by us – or should we say more correctly, from us. It’s skin cells, hair, and other microscopic specks. It could be dust mites, fibres from clothes, pollen, plastics, mould spores and general bacteria.

Housework celebrity, Lynsey Queen of Clean, recommends, "Vacuum the stairs once a week and the rest of the house twice a week. But high-traffic areas, such as home entrances, doormats, and kitchens should be vacuumed daily.”

Other interiors bloggers suggest following this rule: count the number of people in your household then vacuum one time per person per week – and pets count as part of the family. So, if it’s just you and the dog, that’s twice a week. A family of five means you should get out the vacuum five times a week!

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How often should you vacuum different flooring?

Carpets and rugs

Try as you might to keep everything as clean as possible, anything soft or fluffy in your home can attract dust and debris and hold onto it, and the same applies with odours and stains. So, how often should you hoover carpet?

It’s best to vacuum carpets twice a week and use the beater brush attachment if your carpet is particularly deep. (Don’t use a beater brush on a loop or Berber-like carpet, as it will loosen the loops and make them fuzzy).

If you can, shake out any rugs before you vacuum as that will get rid of a lot of the dust and debris. Remember to hoover up that dust though, otherwise you’re back to square one!

If you’ve recently bought a new carpet from Tapi, or you’re thinking of buying one, then we’ve produced a carpet care guide full of information on how best to care for your carpet.

Wood, laminate or vinyl

We’d recommend you sweep rather than vacuum smooth flooring surfaces, and give it a quick once-over with a lightly damp mop to wipe away stubborn stains. Dry the surface thoroughly straight afterwards - wooden flooring like natural engineered wood doesn't like being wet!

If you hate wrestling with a dustpan, you can always sweep the floor to create a pile of any dust or debris, and vacuum that up; just be careful to use the correct setting on your suction head.

How to hoover effectively

Now we’ve discussed how often should you vacuum, let’s look at some ways to hoover effectively. There are three simple rules to follow:

Clean your vacuum first

It might feel like it doesn’t make sense to clean your vacuum before you use it. but if you keep the machine itself as clean as you can, it will mean that you won’t transfer any previous dirt or debris onto the carpet that you’re about to vacuum.

Vacuum up and down as well as side to side

If you want to create those triangular marks, this is the way. But it’s not just about looks – this is the best way to make sure you pick up every last speck of dust.

Go slow

The temptation (especially if you hate housework!) is to get the job over with as soon as possible. But if you vacuum slowly and overlap the paths you take with the suction head, you’re much more likely to lift up the debris.

If you’ve noticed your carpet is looking a little flat, we also have lots of ideas for how to lift your carpet pile to make it look as good as new.

Real Customer Home
@tamzinmcgillen

How often should pet owners vacuum?

Our pets are part of our family - and, like our family, they come in all shapes and sizes, and some are furrier than others! So vacuum once a week at least, depending on how much your furry friends shed. If you feel you can’t stay on top of your pet hair, then think about investing in a specialist vacuum. You could even get a robot vacuum that does a sweep of the room every night, leaving you with a sparkling clean floor every morning. For more pet inspiration, take a look at our pick of the best pet-friendly flooring.

How often should you vacuum if you live alone?

Even if you live alone, how often you vacuum largely depends on your lifestyle, flooring, and how much dirt you usually bring into your home. For most people following a regular routine and with no pets, vacuuming once a week is usually enough to get rid of pesky dirt and debris. However, high-traffic areas like entryways, living rooms, and kitchens may benefit from more regular maintenance, especially during wetter and muddier months.

If you live alone but own pets or your house has a lot of foot traffic from guests, vacuuming two or three times a week should help maintain cleanliness and air quality.

You might also find you need to vacuum stairs, hallways and kitchens much more frequently than bedrooms or living rooms.

How often should you vacuum a room you don’t use?

For a room you barely use, vacuuming less frequently should be sufficient. In most cases, once every 2-4 weeks should be enough to keep dust and settling debris from building up. Even if you don’t use the room, it will collect airborne dust over time, especially if central heating is being used frequently.

If the room is completely shut off and has minimal airflow, you may be able to stretch this to once a month or even less, but regularly airing and vacuuming the room can stop it from feeling stale when you do need it!

Vacuuming anywhere else

There are some places around the home you might not have thought about vacuuming, such as your mattress, pet beds, lampshades, curtains or ceiling corners. Vacuuming these can prevent cobwebs, mites and other nasties gathering and help keep allergies at bay.

As you can tell, at Tapi we’re obsessed with flooring, and passionate about taking good care of carpets, laminates, vinyl and more. If you need our friendly, expert advice, pop into your local Tapi store, where our expert floorologists can help you choose and look after the perfect flooring for you.