Soot is mostly made up of carbon, produced when organic material such as wood or coal is burned. Dark, flaky particles pass through the smoke and onto nearby surfaces, such as carpeting or up the chimney, as in a fireplace fire.
Removing soot from your carpet is not an easy task, especially if you have bright-colored carpets in your home. If you frequently burn fires in your fireplace to keep the house warm, especially during cold seasons, you will likely have soot on your carpet. Here are is a way that you can remove soot from your carpet.
How To Remove Soot from Your Carpet?
You may need the following items to remove soot from your carpet.
Vacuum cleaner
Baking soda or corn starch
Dry cleaning solvent, rubbing alcohol, or hydrogen peroxide.
Spoon
Towels
Warm water
1. Using a spoon, remove large soot clumps
Before treating the stains, use a spoon to remove any apparent chunks of soot. When picking up the lumps, be gentle; if you slam the soot deeper into the carpet, you’ll have to perform extra cleaning later.
The regular kitchen spoon will do, but you have to clean it thoroughly when you are done. If you are not comfortable using a spoon, you can use a paper towel to scoop the soot.
2. Sprinkle baking soda, corn starch, or any other absorbent on the stains
The absorbent should completely cover the soot on your carpet so that it can easily pull in the stain. Using baking soda will also help in eliminating any odor in your carpet.
3. Let the absorbent sit for at least 1 hour
Patience is needed if you do not want the soot to spread on your carpet. As you sit and wait, the absorbents you have sprinkled and covered the soot entirely will gently soak it up without damaging your carpet. After soaking up the soot stain from your carpet, a cake-like substance will be formed that is easy to vacuum.
– Some absorbents are strong enough to remove light stains after 8 hours of sitting on them. One hour, on the other hand, is sufficient to absorb the soot from your carpet.
4. Vacuum the absorbent and soot up after waiting for an hour
When the soot is soaked with the absorbent, the cake-like powder will need a vacuum with high sucking power for easy removal. When sucking the cake-like powder from your carpet, you will need to go over the soot-stained area multiple times to ensure that as much stain as possible is removed.
Cleaning the soot-stained area of your carpet
1. Soak a clean, white cloth in hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol. It is advisable that you use a white cloth since hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol have chemicals that may bleach the fabric.
You can use one tablespoon (15 mL) rubbing alcohol alone or combine one tablespoon (15 mL) hydrogen peroxide with three tablespoons (44 mL) warm water and apply it to the cloth. When you mix the hydrogen peroxide with warm water, it dilutes the chemical, preventing it from damaging your carpet.
2. Blot the solution onto the stained parts of the carpet. You may avoid spreading soot all over the place by gently wiping the chemical into the carpet. The cloth will begin to pull the soot spots off the carpet fibers and onto the cloth’s surface.
3. Use a separate damp, clean cloth to remove the solvent. Using your new cloth, dab the soiled area with warm water. Mold can grow if there is too much moisture in the carpet, so dry the discolored area properly.
4. You should repeat the process if some traces of soot stains remain on your carpet to erase it all and leave your carpet soot-free.
