How to Clean a Sofa Using a Vacuum Cleaner?

Sofa cleaning is the basic necessity that you should implement to maintain the texture of your furniture so that it becomes long-lasting. According to a study, not providing proper care for your sofa can lead to dust, stains, and odor. It can be detrimental for you and your families since some children and pets enjoy playing on the couch. 

Thus it’s recommended that you use a professional cleaning service to clean your sofa every 12 months. If that seems to be expensive, you could try it yourself using a best vacuum cleaner. In this blog, we will educate you on how to clean a sofa using a vacuum cleaner to easily get rid of dust and debris from your loveseat and maintain its appearance.   

Things to Understand Before Cleaning Your Sofa

Before you start vacuuming your sofa, you must check the manufacturing and caring instructions. By doing so, you prevent yourself from doing things that are prohibited on your precious piece so that it is not damaged.

Even if you have lost the manufacturing instructions manual, you can go to their website and look up how it should be cleaned, or else you should check the tags attached to the loveseat, which can provide a lot of instructions on how you should scrub your sofa spotless. You will notice tags such as W, S, and W/s

• W stands for water-based cleaners. It indicates that your sofa can be cleaned using home cleaning agents.
• S stands for solvents. It indicates that you must use a special kind of solvent for cleaning.
• W/s stands for water and solvents, which represents that you can use both water and solvent to clean the fabric 

Steps to Clean Your Sofa With the Help of a Vacuum Cleaner

Let’s see the step-by-step procedure involved in cleaning a sofa using a vacuum cleaner.

Step1: Empty the Dirt Bag or Canister of Your Vacuum

Before you start vacuum cleaning your sofa, check for the dirt that your vacuum has collected so far. If the bag/container is full, empty it to clean so that it can perform efficiently to catch all the dirt and debris from your sofa. If you’re using a new vacuum, you can skip directly to step2.

Step2: Adjust Your Vacuum at Appropriable Height

After setting up a space for dirt accumulation in your vacuum, adjust the height of your device. Setting up the height at an appropriate level is crucial because if you set it too high, your vacuum will not have the required suction. When you set it too low, the vacuum will be lagging in proper airflow, thus disturbing the cleaning process. 

Hence, the height of the vacuum must be compatible with the length of your sofa. 

Step3: Remove Unnecessary Items From Your Couch

Now it’s time to remove all the unnecessary things from your couch. It will speed up your cleaning process. Start by taking off the removable cushions from your sofa. Then take away the coins, bobby pins, toys, or any other stuff that has fallen onto the couch, as you need to keep in mind that vacuuming these things can cause damage to the unit. 

Step 4: Find the Right Nozzle for your Vacuum Cleaner

Make use of proper vacuum attachments for specialized and efficient cleaning. A simple hose with interchangeable heads is used to remove dirt from every corner of your sofa. The extra accessories always make your job easy and effective. The modern vacuums come with various attachments to ease your cleaning process. Here, we are talking about vacuuming sofas or couches; make sure for the following vacuum attachments.

• An upholstery attachment is best for cleaning your sofa.
• A special nozzle with a soft bristle will work best on soft and delicate fabrics.
• A simple bristle-free nozzle is used for soft furniture, eliminating dust and debris while also lifting the pile of fabric.
• The crevice tool will take extra care of corners and hidden areas where the debris can settle easily. 
• You can use a soft brush to remove pet hair from your sofa. (We recommend buying a lint roller separately for removing furs and long hair from your couch). 
• The combi brush, parquet brush, and turbo brush are additional tools for cleaning your sofa more efficiently.

Step 5: Start Vacuuming 

Now that you have made all your preparations, turn on your vacuum cleaner to start cleaning your sofa. During the cleaning process, push your vacuum back and forth for effective performance. Also, please don’t move your vacuum too fast as it will not be able to absorb the dirt perfectly.

While cleaning the sofa, it’s better to move your vacuum forward and backward over the surface slowly and uniformly. 

Step 6: Steam Clean Your Sofa

Well, it is not a mandatory step, but if you can do this, you will surely get a spotless and stain-free sofa. Using a best steam vacuum cleaner is the great idea here. It can release the toughest spots and stains, kills germs and bacteria, and lets you get a cleaner couch. 

Some Important Tips You Need to Keep in Mind While Vacuuming Your Sofa

1. Just having one round to pull the dust is not enough.

Cleaning just once is not recommended at all since it might not remove the dust and debris on the first attempt. Hence it’s advised that you should clean your sofa from multiple directions in the same area. 

Using a vacuum cleaner for just one time can lead to improper cleaning as potential debris is still found on the spot. Ask any family that owns a pet; they will tell you that it’s extremely hard to remove pet hair from the couch using a single attempt. Make sure that you run your cleaner in a criss cross manner to make the area spotless.

2. No sitting or playing on the sofa while using the vacuum.

Image a scenario where you just cleaned a spot and your children have spilled something on the same spot, or your pet had made it dirty. You will get furious, won’t you? This action will make you discontinue your cleaning process, and we don’t want you to encounter this. Hence it’s advisable to make your children and pets stay in a different room while the cleaning is in progress.

3. Don’t hurry while cleaning: Set up a schedule.

Anything done in a hurry leads to failure, and this fits perfectly for cleaning your sofa too. If there is a lot on your mind, then you should avoid cleaning. Reaching mental calmness will help you clean effectively.

It’s reported that high-traffic homes require cleaning more than once a week. By high traffic, we mean children’s regularly dropping eateries on the sofa or your pet constantly shedding their hair on the couch.

4. The canister should be cleaned before cleaning.

If your vacuum bag or canister is full of dirt, there is no point in cleaning as it cannot suck up the new garbage present in your daybed. Hence it’s advisable to empty your canister before attempting to clean your couch. If you have an older version of a vacuum that consists of a bag instead of a canister, the process still remains the same.

5. Move excess furniture that is around your sofa. 

Before cleaning your sofa with a vacuum, it’s advised to move any excess furniture around your sofa. It is because while cleaning, your vacuum will be in constant motion. This motion can accidentally damage the furniture around your sofa.

6. Don’t treat vacuum cleaners as stain killers. 

If you accidentally spill something on your couch, then your immediate reflex should be to clean it asap so that it does not sustain the stain. However, don’t treat the vacuum as your stain cleaner since that will damage your sofa more. Instead, use a spot cleaner like a steam cleaner to mitigate the issue. 

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