When your carpet starts to look a little grungy, it can be very tempting to simply try to take care of it yourself. Unsightly spots and stains affect the look of your entire home, and a clean carpet can do wonders for both your home’s appearance and your mood.

But while going the DIY route has its perks, it also has some major drawbacks. We’ve made a pros and cons list for you below.

Related: How Dirty Carpets Can Affect Your Health

Pro: You save money upfront.
Con: You don’t get as deep a cleaning.

While many consumer-grade carpet cleaners are fairly affordable to rent or purchase, these machines tend to be lower quality than those used by the professionals. They are typically less powerful, which means that the dirt, water, and cleaning solution will not be completely removed.

Pro: You have control over the project.
Con: You have to put in the work yourself.

DIYers may want to only clean certain areas of the house, like the main traffic paths. When this is the case, it can be difficult for a professional to give an accurate estimate of the project. However, If you want to clean the entire surface of your carpet, you may want to hire a professional. Moving heavy furniture by yourself can be tricky or even dangerous, and a professional carpet cleaner will usually take care of that for you.

Pro: You can clean on your own schedule.
Con: It takes forever to dry.

Cleaning your own carpets also means that you can work on your own timeline. If you want to clean your carpets at 2 a.m., that’s up to you. A professional carpet cleaning needs to be scheduled ahead of time. But the amount of water that commercial cleaners use keeps your carpets wet for hours on end, and usually long after you wanted to put the furniture back and be done with it. Dr. Chem-Dry’s patented cleaning technique uses only a minimal amount of water so that carpets dry in hours, not days.

Pro: DIY traffic lane removal & spotter products are cheap.
Con: Self-treated traffic areas and stains tend to return.

Commercially available stain removers may appear to treat your problem areas, but once the carpeting dries, the spots often reappear. This is especially true for stains that have soaked through the carpet to the padding below — when re-wetted with commercial cleaners, the stain wicks back up to the surface. In addition, most cleaners and spotters purchased from a store leave soapy residues in the carpet. These can cause rapid re-soiling, and old stains and traffic lanes will begin to reappear. Dr. Chem-Dry’s method harnesses the power of carbonation to lift even deep, set-in stains and dirt to the surface of your carpet and suck them away with no sticky, dirt-attracting residues.

Related: Can Stain Removers Ruin My Carpet?

Dr. Chem-Dry has been cleaning carpets in the Phoenix area for more than 35 years. We’ve combined our own cleaning formulas with our patented cleaning head to leave carpets sparkling and new while using only a fraction of the water used in other carpet cleaning methods.

To learn more about our carpet cleaning process or to request an estimate, give Dr. Chem-Dry a call at 602-243-6379.