The most important factors to preserve carpets and rugs for a life time and future generations is to keep them clean, to take good care and restore them immediately when damaged.
Normally a carpet should be cleaned every two or three years. When touched by hand, if the pile and the fibre of the rug are rough and sticky or totally dirty, depending where the carpet has been spread and the frequency of its wear and tear, then the time has come for it to be washed.

The materials and products used to wash rugs are very simple and elementary and most of them are in every household; a pail, a brush with soft bristles, the length of which should not exceed three centimetres (made of natural fibres), carpet shampoo or wool country homestead Wool Mix without any acid elements.
 

In the process of hand cleaning, the first step is to mix half cup of shampoo in 4 litres of slightly-warm water. It's better to add two spoonfuls of natural white vinegar to prevent the colours from running. After preparing the solution, lay the rug flat on a hard, smooth and dry surface, i. e., on a terrace, balcony, with the pile of the rug facing upwards. Then deep a rough towel in the solution, take it out and squeeze it till it is drip free and clean the pile with it in every half sq- meter area each time. Make sure that you wash the dirt of your towel after each session and repeat the process for each half meter section till all cleaned. By now your rug is only damp and cleaned; leave it in the open air for 1 hour till dry. 

When a rug is still damp it should never be folded as humidity gradually penetrated and rots the foundation. Before washing a rug, all the dirt, grit, loose fibres and fluffy wool should be removed by beating the back gently with a cane beater. Companies specialised in cleaning oriental rugs have mechanised beaters.

Rugs should be washed only in specialised professional rug-cleaning companies and never in dry-cleaners. The solution used by the dry-cleaners ruins the wool, the warp and weft.