Vacuuming is a chore all across the world. The evolvement of technology has made cleaning a lot easier and efficient.
Vacuum cleaners are an essential part of keeping your home clean. They can be used to clean the entire home and help you maintain a clean home.
Stairs are often taken for granted even though they are one of the most significant innovations in architecture.
You can clean your stairs the same way you clean your floors with a vacuum cleaner.
But the type of vacuum cleaner for stairs should be different from what you use on the floor. So, let us discuss how to vacuum stairs?
Select the rights units for vacuuming
The vacuuming of stairs is a rather tedious task, especially when you don’t have the right tools to do so.
So first of all, focus on choosing the right unit that’s portable and easy to use.
You can vacuum your stairs effectively with just about any vacuum, but specific vacuums help this process be a little less cumbersome.
The best choice for these kinds of tasks is a mid-sized or larger powered cordless canister vacuum.
These units are good for stair cleaning and can also be used as standard vacuums in the home.
If you’re going to clean the stairs in your home, make sure that you’re investing a good amount of time in this activity in order to get the job done correctly.
The best vacuums for stairs are made with several attachments that allow one to effortlessly remove particles from virtually any surface.
You want a vacuum cleaner that has enough horsepower to suck up all the dust and small items easily.
Finally, it’s important that you do plenty of research before making a purchase because there is a wide array of variants on the market.
Select the rights tools for vacuuming
Before beginning to tackle a job, it is important to prepare yourself and your equipment.
For example, when cleaning with a vacuum cleaner, the potential task may include picking up dirt from the stairs or corners of the room.
In situations like this, you want to ensure that you have one of several different kinds of vacuum brush attachments in order to best pick up all kinds of debris such as dust or crumbs around the edges.
If you have pets in your house or if you own a pet, be sure to purchase accessories made especially for taking care of any pet messes found on rugs in your home.
Remove dirt first from your stairs
Vacuuming down the stairs can be a chore, cleaning out dirt and debris can clog and ruin your vacuum, crumbs and other debris that might be picked up in-between the brushes are bad for them.
Before you start to vacuum your staircases take the time to carefully clear away large pieces of dirt with a stiff broom, doing this will do better than trying to pick them up with a vacuum as they are much too big for it.
Use cleaning detergent
Needless to say, children and pets have no respect for stairs (or anything else for that matter), which is why you constantly end up with dirty marks on your carpeted stairs.
A common misconception about these areas to clean is that you should vacuum them first before cleaning with water.
We actually recommend the opposite method; this is because vacuum cleaners only spread the dirt around further into crevices.
Which makes it harder for you to clean later and results in dirt ending up all over the place instead of where you want it to go!
So before vacuuming, we recommend applying some kind of detergent like a carpet shampoo and making sure to focus on the heavily stained or muddy parts of each step – this ensures that those hard-to-reach areas don’t become permanent fixtures and requires less work on your end to get completely clean.
Use a towel to soak the bottom of the stairs to soak up detergent and then use that same towel to rub down each step to remove any dirt or soap.
Leave the stems to dry for 15 minutes before you go back and clean the steps as much as possible so not a single residue is left behind.
Start vacuuming from the corner
Attach the crevice tool or a brush attachment. To tackle the dust and dirt from corners, edges, and surfaces – from underneath furniture.
For example, which is not as easy to clean without a vacuum – you need to attach one of the two tools.
Imagine your vacuum cleaner as a team: you have leaders (suckers) who are responsible for sucking in all the debris, soldiers (brush) who make sure all areas are cleaned up, and deputies (crevice tool) whose job it is to get into corners where they might not be able to reach in order to make sure there’s no residue left behind.
Clean the steps of stairs
When you are vacuuming your stairs, it’s important to vacuum from the top of the stairs and work down moving from right to left.
If done properly this guarantees that the stair vacuum will collect any remaining debris or crumbs at the bottom of your steps.
This is because when using a telescopic wand vacuum cleaner attachment it’s best to move the hose around your steps in order for you to get all those stubborn dust particles without lifting up an entire upright vacuum cleaner.
Clean the Risers
When vacuuming stairs, the area between each step is considered a riser – so you’ve got to clean both.
To make it easier vacuums have these special attachments called “risers attachments” that help to gather debris within the crevices of stairs.
Unfortunately, this device can be cumbersome and uncomfortable to use when trying to clean tall poles such as stairs.
So, the best option would be working in sections alternating between the middle and bottom stair section until you reach the end.
Tips while vacuuming
When you’re cleaning stairs, use the following tips to keep yourself and your family as safe as possible.
First of all, hold the vacuum firmly with both hands and not with only one so that you will have balance and feel confident using it.
Be aware that when backed up to stairs or steps you’ll notice there is less space for maneuvering which can be very dangerous if the vacuum falls over so take extra precautions.
Another safety aid is that handrail so when you put a finger on the railing, your entire finger is grazing the surface and slowly you let go of the stair step.
Never rush down a staircase, there are many parts of an average home where we get in a hurry and damage something else instead.
We’re reminding you to be careful on the way down because it takes longer to get back up again!
Clean every edge and corner of the stairs before going down and always wait for someone else to go ahead before joining them.
FAQs
What attachment should I use to vacuum stairs?
To help clean these hard-to-reach areas, you’ll want to look for a crevice tool (also known as the long attachment with a thin end) and brush tool.
Adding on an upholstery tool, which has two round brushes for cleaning fabric, will keep your furniture nice and tidy.
For a more convenient way to tackle dirt and pet hair on stairs, consider buying a mini motorized brush attachment that fits onto the end of the main vacuuming loop, making it easy to get under the edges.
How often should you vacuum your stairs?
For a deep clean of your stairs, it’s important to use a vacuum with a hose extension for optimal results -as opposed to using one that is cordless.
First position the vacuum unit at the bottom of the stairs, then vacuums each step two-three times, making sure to aim up towards the top of the staircase as well.
Is it best to dust or vacuum first?
Before you start vacuuming make sure to dust the room first so after you take care of the dust floating through the air, you can then get rid of what settles on the ground.
Conclusion
Vacuum cleaners are great for cleaning carpets and rugs but can be a bit more difficult on stairs.
For most people, cleaning the stairs is always the most difficult cleaning task in the house.
The vacuum cleaner is too big to be manageable and cleaning the stairs is a difficult task with a hand-held vacuum.
But cleaning the stairs is a necessary task and with the help of a stair cleaning attachment which can be used on your vacuum cleaner, cleaning the stairs is not that difficult of a task.
This blog gives detailed instructions and tells you about cleaning attachments that can be used with your existing vacuum cleaner. I hope after reading this article you will understand how to vacuum stairs.
