When is the last time you viewed your business through your customers’ eyes? When someone walks through the front doors of your business, their senses of sight, smell, hearing, and touch all combine to subconsciously create their first impression of your company. So it’s important to occasionally walk in their shoes through those doors and re-experience your business all over again, to ensure your creating a positive and memorable first impression.

Clean Area Rugs Bring Your Business to Life

Throughout St. Louis and St. Charles counties, many businesses are decorating offices with beautiful area rugs to give that extra color and set the tone of the company. Area rugs work great in lounges, entryways, and any space where a monotonous floor pattern needs a little dressing up. A rug can soften hard surfaces, or add a splash of color in an otherwise neutral area. The right rug can bring a feeling of warmth or sophistication, and bring the rest of your décor together.

But as you might imagine, literally getting stepped, wiped, and walked on all day can really take toll. Rugs take the brunt of wear and grime in heavily trafficked areas, which are also the areas that people are most likely to see them. Some rugs hide their wear better than others. But it doesn’t change the fact that the less you care for them, the shorter lifespan they’ll have. Your area rugs are a significant investment, so it’s important to keep them in good condition and aesthetic.

Area rug cleaning is the kind of thing that is easy to overlook. But with the wide variety of weather we experience in the St. Louis area, it should be a priority on the top of your list. Rugs are accent pieces. So they naturally draw attention, whether it’s good or bad. If your rugs aren’t looking their best, you could be unintentionally setting the wrong tone and sending the wrong message to customers.

The St. Louis Leader in Area Rug Cleaning

Sams Carpet Cleaning and Repairs has built a name for high quality commercial and residential carpet cleaning in the St. Louis area. So it probably comes as no surprise that FrenchTown Rug Cleaning Co., our rug cleaning division, has also been cleaning exquisite area rugs for over 20 years. We have a detailed process that will restore your area rugs to its previous condition. And if you’re challenged to find the time to bring them in, we have a convenient pickup service for St. Louis area customers. We’ll pick your area rugs up, clean them in our facility, and deliver them back to you refreshed and renewed.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Partner with Sams to ensure that you’re always prepared to impress with beautifully cleaned area rugs.

Most big problems start as preventable small ones. Such is the case with filtration soiling.

If you’ve noticed the carpet in one or more rooms of your house is black or dirty around the edges, you’ve probably wondered what’s causing it and how to clean it up. This housekeeping headache is called filtration soiling, and it’s caused by poor air circulation. If air is being forced into a space faster than it’s being pulled out by the HVAC system, it’s forced to find a different way out of the room. Often, that alternate route is underneath closed doors and through the gap between your carpet and your trim.

As time goes on, your carpet serves as a filter for this air, trapping all the pollutants into its fibers. Over the years, serving as an air filter takes its toll on your carpets and you’re left with unsightly, dirty reminders of the pollutants in your home’s air.

How to Clean Filtration Soiling

If you’ve attempted to remove filtration soiling yourself, you’ve probably discovered it is not easy to clean up with ordinary housekeeping tools. This isn’t your everyday dirty carpet and a vacuum cleaner is little match for the mess. But you’re not out of luck. Sams Carpet Cleaning has a safe and reliable solution for removing most filtration soiling with the tools in our carpet cleaning arsenal.

Filtration soiling is so difficult to remove because many of the pollutants in your air are either water- or solvent-soluble. So cleaning agents that work on some of these pollutants won’t work on another. We often need to apply multiple treatments to remove the soiling caused by them.

Preventing Filtration Soiling

The first step to preventing filtration soiling is to address air quality. Having your air ducts professionally cleaned by the Sams team will eliminate potential pollutants your air might be picking up as it travels through your walls in the HVAC system. Filters can also go a long way toward improving air quality. Ensure that you change your furnace filter at least once every 90 days. If the air isn’t dirty, there will be fewer pollutants for the carpet edges to filter out.

Next, it’s time to think about pollutants you or your family may be adding to the air circulating through your home. Smoke from wood burning fireplaces, cigarettes or candles is a major culprit. Surprisingly regular use of cooking oils can also be a contributor. Ensuring surfaces are dust free and carpets are vacuumed regularly will also help remove potential pollutants from your home.

Finally, just keeping the interior doors in your house open can make a big difference. The more freedom air has to move, the less likely it will be to look for alternate pathways. Open doors will allow air to pass from room to room and should go a long way to preventing filtration soil.

It’s important to know that filtration soiling is not a sign of a dirty home. This common occurrence can happen in even the tidiest of homes and replacing the carpet is not the only solution. If you’ve spent years trying to remove filtration soiling yourself or you’ve resorted to moving furniture around to cover it up, give us a call. The Sams team is your secret weapon in the battle with filtration soiling.

Have you ever spent a considerable amount of time in a building you felt you were allergic to? You were likely experiencing a reaction to the building’s air quality. Americans spend, on average, 1/3 of their lives at work. Employee morale and engagement are critical to retaining a high functioning and happy staff. Keeping them healthy should be at the top of your priority list.

Office air quality has always been important to consider. But the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on how we work has made it a front and center priority for companies. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the steps you can take to improve the air quality in your building.

Improve Air Circulation

Take a walk around your office building and look at your vents. Are any of them blocked, preventing the free flow of air through your facility? Desks, boxes, bookshelves, or any other items blocking a vent can have a major negative impact on the proper circulation of air. If air is not allowed to flow, it doesn’t get filtered by your HVAC system. Similarly, your HVAC filters need to be checked and replaced frequently. A dirty filter allows dust and debris to compound behind it and settle into air ducts.

Clean Your Office Frequently

Regular cleaning removes allergens from surfaces, lessening the chances that they can become airborne and make your employees sick. Many companies schedule regular professional cleanings to minimize pollutants and avoid them contributing to poor office air. Frequent cleaning will also help identify spills and food rot that could be adding mold and mildew to the air.

Control Humidity

Dust mites, mold, and other allergens thrive in overly dry environments. Maintaining a proper humidity level of 30-50% prevents pollutants from travelling as freely as they do in dry air. Consider using standard humidifiers or a whole office humidifier built into your HVAC system to keep humidity at the appropriate level.

Create an Indoor Green Space

Plants are natural air filters. They naturally absorb pollutants, stabilize humidity, and produce clean oxygen. Of course it’s also important to recognize that some people have allergic reactions to some plants. If you’re not able to add plants to your office space, opening windows when the weather allows it is another great way to inject your office building with clean, fresh air from time to time.

Have Your Air Ducts Cleaned Regularly

None of the other suggestions we’ve made will do you much good if you don’t address the unseen areas where air travels through the walls of your building. Dirt, dust, and debris build up in air ducts more than you would imagine, restricting airflow and creating potential health problems. Sams specializes in cleaning office air ducts. We deploy a truck-mounted system with a rotating brush that removes debris from your air ducts and collects it in the truck outside. We can also deploy an E.P.A.-approved anti-microbial disinfectant designed to inhibit the growth of mold, mildew, and other odor-causing bacteria.

Successful companies recognize that their employees are their most valuable assets. Its hard for them to live up to their full potential in an environment they feel is making them sick. Make their wellness a priority by taking these steps to improve the air quality in your office building.  Call Sams at 636-949-8229 or schedule an estimate online to have someone walk through your facility with you, understand your concerns, and provide you with a maintenance proposal to get your air ducts cleaned and keep your team healthy.