How much does area rug cleaning cost in Knoxville?
Area rugs are quoted on site. Two rugs the same size can need very different work: a machine-made synthetic rug with light soil is a quick job, while a hand-knotted wool rug with pet accidents needs a lot more time and care.
When we see the rug, we look at its size, fiber, construction, dyes and soil, and give you a price before any cleaning starts. If you’re also having carpet or furniture cleaned, our other starting prices are on the pricing page.
What kinds of rugs can you clean?
- Oriental and Persian-style rugs, hand-knotted or machine-made
- Wool rugs, the most common natural-fiber rug in Knoxville homes
- Silk and silk-blend rugs, including rugs with silk highlights
- Cotton rugs, flatweaves and braided rugs
- Synthetic rugs made of nylon, polyester, polypropylene or viscose
Each one cleans differently. Wool holds soil deep but cleans up well with the right care. Cotton can shrink or brown if it stays wet too long. Viscose, sometimes sold as “art silk,” looks soft and shiny but is weak when wet and can be permanently damaged by water. That’s why we check the fiber first.
Hand-knotted vs machine-made rugs: does it change the cleaning?
Yes. Flip a corner over and look at the back. On a hand-knotted rug, the pattern on the back looks almost the same as the front, with small irregularities in the knots. The fringe is usually the ends of the rug’s own warp threads, not something sewn on.
A machine-made rug has a very even back, often with a stiff backing or a glued-on canvas, and fringe that’s stitched on separately.
Hand-knotted rugs often use natural dyes and hand-spun wool, so they need gentle handling and careful drying. Machine-made rugs with glued backings can come apart or smell if they get too wet. Knowing which one you have tells us how much water the rug can take.
Why do you check the dyes before cleaning a rug?
Some rug dyes bleed when they get wet. Red and dark blue are the usual suspects, and once a red runs into a cream field, it’s very hard to undo. Before cleaning, we dampen a small spot of each main color and blot it to see whether any color transfers.
If the dyes are stable, we clean normally. If they’re not, we change the method, use less moisture, or tell you plainly that the rug carries a risk and let you decide. We’d rather have that conversation before the cleaning than after.
On site or picked up: which does your rug need?
Plenty of rugs clean well right where they lie, especially synthetic and sturdy wool rugs with normal household soil. We clean those on site in the same visit as your carpet or furniture.
Some rugs do better leaving the house. We pick them up, clean them and bring them back when:
- The soil is heavy. Years of grit packed into a wool rug needs more than a surface cleaning.
- There’s pet urine. Urine goes all the way through the rug, and both sides need treatment.
- The rug needs to dry flat. Rugs that can’t dry evenly on the floor, or that sit on hardwood that shouldn’t get wet, are safer dried off the floor.
- It’s silk or very delicate. Silk needs the gentlest care and the most control over the process.
We’ll tell you which option fits your rug when we see it.
How do you clean a silk rug?
Silk needs the gentlest care of any rug. The fibers lose strength when wet, they can water-spot or change texture, and silk dyes are often more likely to move. We use the least moisture the job allows, mild solutions, and slow, careful drying.
Many silk and silk-blend rugs are better picked up than cleaned on the floor. If a silk rug has old damage, wear or color loss, we’ll point it out first, because cleaning can make existing wear easier to see.
Can pet urine be cleaned out of an area rug?
Often it can, but it depends on how long it’s been there and how many times it happened. Urine soaks through the face of the rug into the foundation, and on hardwood it can mark the floor underneath. Old urine can also set into the dyes and leave a permanent color change even after the smell is gone.
For urine, we usually recommend pick-up cleaning so the rug can be treated from both sides and rinsed thoroughly. If the accidents reached your wall-to-wall carpet as well, our pet urine and odor removal page explains how we handle that.
Can you clean rug fringe?
Yes. Fringe gets dingy fast because it sits right where feet and vacuums hit it. On hand-knotted rugs the fringe is part of the rug itself, usually undyed cotton or wool, so it’s cleaned gently by hand. Fringe that has already worn thin or frayed won’t come back to new, and we’ll tell you so up front.
One tip in the meantime: vacuum across the rug, not over the fringe, so the beater bar doesn’t chew it up.