We recently gave our readers some tips and tricks for maintaining trailer floors, now we’ll look at trailer carpets. As you can imagine, trailers and RV carpets can get dirty very quickly. Depending on where you travel, you’re going to drag in everything from dirt and debris to mud and water. If you don’t nip these issues in the bud, your carpet will suffer. That’s why we’ve put together these tips for maintaining trailer carpets.
Tips to Maintain Trailer Carpets
Any time you perform routine maintenance on your recreational vehicle or trailer, you want to clean the carpets. Investing in a middle of the road carpet cleaner is the way to go. You don’t need anything heavy duty unless you have a bad spill or major problem area. Clean the carpets with the carpet cleaner every time you park and perform routine maintenance.
Before and after a trip, always vacuum your carpets from end-to-end. Use the attachment tools to get into hard to reach corners and where the carpet meets the baseboard. Be thorough. The more you pick up with a good vacuum, the less you leave to impact into the carpet itself which over time can cause build-up and other issues.
If possible, take off all shoes and sandals before you get into the RV or trailer. If your shoes are wet, they’re going to track in mud and mud mixtures which can be a nightmare for carpets. Not only are you dragging mud through the carpet, but it’s also getting packed into the carpet fibers. If your shoes are particularly muddy and wet, and you leave them on the carpet for a while, that’ll seep into the carpet and can cause issues below it as well.
For small wet stains and spills, never rub them into the carpet. Blot them instead. Use a soft washcloth and blot until you get up a majority of the liquid. You can use a variety of carpet-based sprays cleaners afterward – just remember to blot that up, too.
There are a variety of homemade and do-it-yourself methods for removing stains from carpets. Before you try any of them in an RV or trailer, confer with the manufacturer’s guide to the carpet in the unit. If it’s a particular type of carpet, one homemade cleaner over another may work better so make sure you check before you put down anything on the carpets.
Make sure to follow any manufacturer’s guidelines for your motorhome or trailer carpets to help keep them clean, too.
Maintaining your trailer carpets is easier said than done depending on where you travel and what you track inside. While stains and spills are easier to clean up, grime and dirt may not necessarily be easy to take care of. Consider the way you enter your RV, take your shoes off before stepping inside, and use rugs and other protective mats to keep those coming and going from tracking in grime that’ll make maintaining your carpets that much harder to do as you travel.