If you feel like you’ve been paying way too much to have your carpet professionally steam-cleaned, you could most likely cut out a lot of the cost by doing it yourself. Here are the four steps you need to take when you rent a steam cleaner:

1) Empty the room
Unless you want your carpet to be multi-tinted, you will want to move everything from the room you’re cleaning into an adjacent room. While this is a pain, it will give you more room to operate and the entire carpet will be clean.

2) Do a pre-vacuum
Take a normal vacuum cleaner and go over the areas that you plan on steam-cleaning. This will help get up any of the extra dirt so you’re not burdening the steam cleaner with extras that it shouldn’t have to pick up.

3) Prepare the cleaner
The solution that you will probably be using is the reservoir filled with hot water and adding one or two capfuls of the cleaning solution. Always make sure that the filter is clean.

4) Plan your route
You will always want to start your cleaning where there isn’t an exit and work your way towards one. Don’t trap yourself in and don’t do any weird patterns in your carpet. When you’re all done be sure that you let your carpet dry before moving all the furniture back on.