How Often Should You Vacuum?
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
Wondering how often should you vacuum? The answer may surprise you. It depends.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
The house we live in had brand new carpet when we moved in. What a treat!
Forget the fact that it’s practically white carpet, okay, very light beige. And a rental. Who does that?
Needless to say, we’ve tried hard to take good care of it. Well, as best as one can when you live in a busy household of eight people, six of them active children.
Daily vacuuming has been our first line of defense. Regular carpet cleaning has been the second. The question often comes up, however, daily vacuuming?
How Often Should You Vacuum?
Yes, daily.
A few summers ago, almost eight to be exact, I decided to instill some better cleaning habits in all of us and instituted the daily vacuuming of the living areas.
There are three carpeted areas in the downstairs, and so each of the big boys had to choose one area to vacuum every day. It’s amazing what a difference it made to the overall appearance of our home.
I’d read once that you should vacuum an area as many times per week as the number of people that regularly use that area.
So, for a bedroom for one person, a weekly vacuuming is sufficient. A room with two roomies should get a twice a week treatment.
Our main living areas? According to that formula, they should receive eight vacuumings a week!
Well, that ain’t happening. But, since that fateful summer day we’ve been able to swing a daily once over. It really doesn’t take very long to go over each area.
And, since it has to be vacuumed, all the junk has to be picked up off the floor, too! {Maniacal laughter from the Mama.}
We’ve hired the same carpet cleaner for many, many years, and he has agreed that the daily vacuuming has helped our carpet last this long. It’s cheap, renter’s carpet in beige, so there’s only so much you can do, but daily vacuuming has helped.
What kind of vacuum should you get?
For over 20 years, we’ve had an Oreck upright vacuum. The first one lasted us about 13 years. The second is almost seven years old and going strong. You can read my review of it here.
For a short time, we had Jarvis, a robotic vacuum. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as loyal to us as he was Ironman.
When we had hard floors, we loved the Shark Cordless Sweeper. It was so light even the toddlers could use it. You can read my review of it here.
How often do YOU vacuum at your house?
Originally published August 16, 2010. Updated January 31, 2018.
I usually vacuum the whole house once a week…and mop. I’ve made it a chore for my oldest son, though, to run through the hall and living room every evening. It doesn’t always get done, but we’re workin’ on it.:) Our living room can get pretty messy if we don’t, just due to it being the most “lived in” room in our house, besides our kitchen.
We also have six children. I would love to see it vacuumed daily, but I settle for three times a week, sometimes four. I think keeping it vacuumed makes the whole house look better. For those of you who vacuum daily…what kind of vacuum do you have? I’ve probably been through half a dozen vacuums in the last 10 years. Ugh!
@Stephenie,
The Dysons are pricey but well worth it, in my opinion. We have a pet model and we don’t even have carpet! Within two days it made such a huge difference in the cleanliness of the house. I noticed Target has been putting them on sale and you can also find deals at Kohl’s when they run their percent off promotions.
@Beth,
I LOVE my Dyson! We purchased it 6 years ago when my son was born-installed new carpeting in the house too. It still works great after all these years. It’s gross the amount of dirt it picks up from my clean floors!
@Stephenie, We have a Hoover WindTunnel which we recently bought. Before that, we had the same vacuum for 5 years! Although 5 years isn’t long, companies don’t make equipment like they used to.
We have 4 kids (12, 6, 2.5, 7 mos) and a Boxer AND we live in the desert where it’s extremely dusty dirty.
I love the Hoover WindTunnel because it has a HEPA filter (for allergy-stricken kiddos), it works on the tile and carpet, it’s bagless, and it quickly comes apart to wash in the sink.
http://www.target.com/Hoover-WindTunnel-Pet-Rewind-Upright/dp/B002HFA5F6/ref=br_1_6?ie=UTF8&id=Hoover%20WindTunnel%20Pet%20Rewind%20Upright&node=1041786&searchSize=30&searchView=list&searchPage=1&sr=1-6&qid=1282068924&rh=&searchBinNameList=subjectbin,price,target_com_primary_color-bin,target_com_size-bin,target_com_brand-bin&searchRank=salesrank&frombrowse=1
Dysons are the worse. I had really expensive Karastan Shag carpeting and thought I really needed a strong vacuum. The Design was always full of fibers . I ended up ruining the carpet. We replaced the carpet with similar Masland carpet and I purchased a 1970’s Electrolux on E-Bay. . It cleans the carpet without pulling fibers. Dyson is not the answer!
Eight people, daily vacuum. I wish there were enough hours that I could have it done three times a day! It would also help if we had a decent vacuum! 🙂
I’m going to show this to my husband to prove we should be vacuuming more! Any comments on how often carpets should be steam cleaned? I have cream wool carpets and have been meaning to get them professionally cleaned… for 4 years now. Eek!
@Meagan, Our warranty on the carpet from Home Depot required a semi annual cleaning – every 6 months.
We schedule ours for the first week of December and then at some point in June. The Dec cleaning helps keep my mind at eases from hosting Thanksgiving (if something spills, no big deal, the cleaning guy will help get it out!) and helps prepare our home for the holidays.
I have three children, six dogs, one cat and a ranch. No curb-to-curb paving and a lot of, ahem, “muck”. Honestly over the summer, I totally let things slide and I only vacuum every other day or so. But once September comes and things have a more natural rhythm to them I’ll be back to vacuuming once a day and sweeping in the evenings.
Only two bedrooms and the small living room are carpeted, but I still vacuum the whole house – it’s really the only way to get all the hair and dog ‘silt’ that piles up wherever they lie.
When we had new carpet installed, I only remember two things that would negate the warranty –
1. Not vaccuming several times a week, going over each spot seven times.
2. Going barefoot on the carpet. They said the oils from your feet were worse for the carpet than the dirt on the bottoms of your shoes.
We also have six kids, and have vaccuumed daily for years in the main area. To me, it makes the house look clean. Don’t ask me about dusting….UGH!
I agree that your house feels better and looks better when vacuumed.
We have a household of seven. Five of them are children. I vacuum at least once per day. At least. It is just about the easiest thing I can do to make my house look decent when a thorough cleaning is not an option due to time.
I am super picky about vacuuming. I feel like i need to re-do it when our 11 yr old or 9 yr old vacuums for me. Did you struggle with that? I have no problem letting the kids (even our smaller kids) vacuum, but I feel like I still need to go over it so that it is done well…
Great topic!
I try to vacuum daily. We have a dog that sheds like crazy, and 2 days without vacuuming and it gets pretty disgusting. Of course, I can’t be 100% with that schedule, but I really try.
I vacuum my living room and hall pretty much every day…otherwise it really starts to look bad.
I’ve always heard that dirt in the carpet acts like sandpaper, wearing the carpet strands down, so regular vacuuming helps it to last longer.
Also remember that vacuuming also wears the carpet strands down, though! Tough bristles are hitting it as you vacuum. I have to vacuum three times per week, even though we have 4 people and two hairy pets in the house. I like to think of “every two people is one vacuum”, since it’s easy to pick up the dog hair.
I vacuum our family room daily. It’s the center of the house, and gets lots of traffic. The upstairs catwalk, and regularly used bedrooms get vacuumed M, W, F. The rest of the carpeted rooms that don’t get used often are done once a week. We also don’t wear shoes in the house, they come off in the garage. DD and I don’t mind this at all since we love to be barefoot. I’m looking forward to fall, but dread having to wear socks again. 🙁