Care

Cleaning a Wool Rug in the Snow: Does It Work?

By Storied Rugs8 min read

In stock now: 2006 Persian rugs

A small brick red vintage Hamedan rug with a diamond medallion lying inside a glazed front door with deep snow outside, beside an empty boot tray on slate tiles

Yes, cleaning a wool rug in the snow works, as long as the snow is dry and powdery and the day is well below freezing. Lay a small rug face down on clean snow, brush snow over the back, then flip it and repeat, shake it off and let it dry fully indoors. It freshens the wool and lifts surface dust. It does not replace a proper wash, and it is a job for small rugs and runners, not room-size ones.

Snow cleaning suits the kind of rug we sell: low wool pile on a cotton foundation, often in sizes one person can carry.

A small rust Hamedan mat with an ochre and cream medallion hangs over a wooden fence rail above fresh snow on a bright winter morning — A Hamedan, 1 foot 6 inches by 2 feet 9 inches. A medallion in ochre and cream sits on a rust field inside a dark brown border. A mat this small cools down on a fence rail in a few minutes, before it ever touches the snow.

Where snow cleaning comes from

Snow-washing textiles is often done in Norway.^[1] A Norwegian textile newsletter describes an art teacher at an American college snow-washing old wool rya rugs with her students on a sunny day of ten degrees.^[1] Her class laid the rugs in the snow, piled snow over them, brushed it across with mittens and turned them over several times.^[1] Afterward the pieces were visibly cleaner, the colors brighter and the wool smelled fresher.^[1]

That is a fair picture of what to expect on a pile rug too: a fresher surface and brighter-looking wool, not a deep clean. It sits somewhere between a vacuum and a wash.

Why the snow has to be cold and dry

Everything depends on the snow staying frozen. Powder snow is dry new snow, made of loose, fresh ice crystals.^[2] Snow that has sat on the ground for a while can turn dense and crusted as it melts and refreezes.^[2] Neither old crust nor wet, packing snow will do. They melt into the pile and leave you with a damp rug instead of a fresh one.

So pick a day after a fresh snowfall, with the air well below freezing and no sun warming the snow. If the snow packs into a snowball easily, it is too wet. If it squeaks underfoot and blows like dust, it is right.

A damp rug is a real risk with wool, because wool can hold moisture without feeling wet.^[3] A rug that seems dry on top can still be damp in the cotton foundation below.

Which rugs it suits

Snow cleaning works best on rugs you can carry outside and turn over by yourself. Mats, small rugs and runners are ideal, and most of our mini and accent rugs and small rugs are light enough for one person. A long runner is easier with two, one at each end. Nearly all of our runners are low pile, so there is little depth for snow to pack into. Snow is a good way to freshen a runner between proper cleanings, and day to day a runner is vacuumed like any other wool rug.

Skip it for room-size rugs. They are too heavy to turn over in the snow without dragging or folding them. A large rug that needs freshening is a job for a specialist wash.

A Saveh rug with a stepped medallion on a deep red field lies on clean deep powder snow in a garden, a straw broom beside it — A Saveh, 3 feet 3 inches by 6 feet 3 inches. A stepped medallion in deep red with stone and greige detail around it. On clean powder like this, the rug goes face down so the pile presses into the snow while you brush the back.

Step by step

Vacuum the rug first with suction only, the way how to clean a wool rug at home describes. Snow freshens a clean rug. It does not dig out grit.
Take the rug outside and let it cool for a while, draped over a rail or a fence. A rug carried straight from a warm room melts the snow it touches.
Choose clean, deep snow away from the road, the driveway and anywhere a dog has been. Salt, grit and road dirt end up in the pile otherwise.
Lay the rug face down on the snow. Scoop snow over the back and brush it across with a soft broom or a mittened hand. You can press gently, but do not scrub or stamp hard on an old rug.
Lift the rug, shake the snow off, and lay it face up on a fresh patch. Brush a thin layer of snow over the pile in the direction it lies, then sweep it off again.
Shake off every bit of snow you can before you carry the rug back inside. Brush the fringe gently with your hand, and never pull on it to lift the rug.

The whole thing takes ten or fifteen minutes for a small rug. If the snow under the rug turns gray, that is the dust it lifted, so move to clean snow for the second side.

A bright mudroom seen from above, a Zanjan runner with three linked medallions on a deep red field lies flat to dry on pale pine boards, snowy boots on a tray beside it — A Zanjan runner, 2 feet 11 inches by 5 feet 11 inches. Three linked medallions down a deep red field inside a dark brown border. Back indoors, it lies flat with air on both sides until the foundation is dry.

Drying it afterward

A little snow always comes inside with the rug and melts. In the newsletter’s account, the rugs felt dry after a couple of hours of airing in an office.^[1] Feeling dry is not the same as being dry, though, so give it longer.

Lay the rug flat in a room with moving air, away from a radiator or a heat vent. Lift a corner now and then so air reaches the back. Damp materials that are dried within 24 to 48 hours usually do not grow mold.^[4] Wait a full day before you put furniture back on it or roll it up for storage. If it smells of damp wool the next day, it needs more time; why does my wool rug smell explains what that smell means.

What snow cleaning does not do

It does not wash the rug. Grit that has settled deep at the base of the knots stays there, and so do old stains. A rug that is really dirty needs a full wash by hand, the kind described in how our vintage rugs are washed and restored. Our rugs arrive after that wash, so snow is something to try in a later winter, not on delivery day.

It also does not get rid of moths. To kill insects with cold, an object has to be cooled below the point at which the insects can protect themselves, or they recover on warming.^[5] Conservators recommend about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) for a full week.^[5] Ten minutes in the snow does nothing to larvae or eggs. If you suspect moths, follow our moth guide instead.

Is snow cleaning a way to dry clean a rug?

Snow cleaning is about as close as you can get to dry cleaning a wool rug at home: no detergent, almost no water, only cold crystals and a brush. It is not what a dry cleaner means by the word, though. If you want to take a wool rug to a dry cleaner, call first, because many dry cleaners do not handle rugs at all.^[6] Ask who will actually clean it and how. A hand-knotted rug is best washed by hand by a rug specialist, as how to clean a wool rug at home explains.

The low-moisture “dry” methods sold for wall-to-wall carpet are a different thing again, and we would not use them on an old hand-knotted rug. Conservators warn against commercial carpet shampoos on important rugs, because the fibers attract dirt faster afterward.^[7]

Used for what it is, a quick freshening on a cold, bright day, snow cleaning is gentle and free. The rest of the winter routine, including where to put a rug by a snowy front door, is in entryway rug size and on our rug care page.