The short answer is NO! Wool area rugs have a great capacity to hide dry soils. The owners and Housekeepers with area rugs vacuum so quickly that the soil is almost never picked up by the vacuum. The other problems that come up is that the beater bar on the vacuum is set too high or too low, so the brushes never touch the rug or it just keeps getting sucked up by the machine. This is where “Area Rug Dusting” is truly needed. The dry soils that get embedded in the rug act like sandpaper that wears away the fibers of the rug, causing damage to the rug.
Although we would never say “not to Vacuum your rug” we do say slow down and make multiple passes in all directions when vacuuming.
Due to the construction of some rug, ex. such as a single weft rug compared to a 90 line rug your approach to vacuuming will need to be different, a rug may need to be weighted down while others have no problem with the vacuum moving them around and this is not based on the size of the rug its all about construction. For a truly soil free rug, “Rug Dusting” is the only option.
In a upcoming post we will talk about “Rug Dusting”
