Before spending on new carpet plus fitting plus disposal, it is worth establishing whether the existing one is dirty or finished. They look similar from standing height and completely different up close.
We will give you a straight answer on this at the quote stage, including when the answer is that cleaning is not worth your money.
The short version
- Check the pile at the fibre tips, not the overall colour
- Matted and crushed pile can often be revived; abraded pile cannot
- Backing separation and rippling are replacement territory
- Bleach spots and burns are damage, not soiling
- Cleaning first is nearly always cheaper than replacing first
The kneel-down test
Get down to the carpet in a worn traffic lane and compare it with a protected area under furniture. If the fibre tips are frayed, split or fuzzed, the pile is physically abraded and cleaning will only improve appearance modestly. If the fibres are intact but dark and flattened, that is soil and crushing — very recoverable.
Problems cleaning cannot solve
Some faults are structural or permanent and no cleaner should promise otherwise.
- Ripples and lifting, which need re-stretching rather than cleaning
- Delamination where the secondary backing has separated
- Bleach marks, dye loss and cigarette burns
- Moth damage, which needs treatment and often patching
The middle option: clean, protect, defer
Where a carpet has a couple of years left in it, a deep clean plus fibre protector buys those years cheaply and pushes the replacement cost into a later budget. That is a common answer for landlords between tenancies and for households planning other work first.