No more back and forth motion. Here’s the right way to vacuum

Vacuuming your home or apartment is an inevitable part of adult life, and it’s a necessary task for maintaining a healthy and comfortable living space. Vacuuming — next to washing dishes — may be the most frequently performed chore, and it can also be one of the most immediately satisfying. The sight of dust or pet hair being forcibly sucked up as a powerful machine spins around can be very satisfying.

It’s a job that can at least make the room more pleasant. If you’re like me, you may not know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to clean your floors. Even if you have the best vacuum cleaner on the market, if you don’t use it correctly, the tool won’t perform its best and your floors won’t be as clean as they could be.

We’ve done a lot of in-depth hands-on and lab testing to make sure we’re recommending the best cordless, robotic, and affordable vacuums on the market. As we all know, the best tool won’t do much good if you don’t use it properly. When you combine the best vacuums with professional cleaning tips, you’re sure to have squeaky clean floors in no time.

The Right Way to Vacuum Your Home

Those short, quick, back-and-forth motions that most people make when vacuuming don’t pick up all the dust, dirt, and lint that settles into carpets and floors. A more efficient way to vacuum—and the way professionals do it—is to move forward, in neat rows.

First, you will start by vacuuming the carpet row in one direction, from wall to wall. This first pass should be against pile of the carpet to fluff it up and make it easier to remove embedded dirt. A way to tell if you are vacuuming with the grain of the carpet is if the pile is sticking out or looks slightly darker.

Then, move the vacuum back over the strip you vacuumed. This will lay the carpet flat again and pull up any dirt you missed the first time. When you’re back where you started, vacuum another strip right next to the first one, overlapping slightly. Repeat this process until the entire room has been thoroughly vacuumed.

Once you’ve done this, move to a perpendicular direction: If you vacuumed from north to south the first time, vacuum from east to west on your second pass. Yes, it’s extra work and may even seem like overkill, but this method will remove every last bit of dirt and debris, so your carpet will stay cleaner and look newer for longer.

For more helpful information on vacuum cleaners, check out the best Roomba alternatives to help you keep your floors clean, as well as the best robot vacuum deals on the market today.

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