Carpet cleaning: how long to dry?

[KneadToKnow]

I'm moving at the end of the month and plan to clean the carpets myself with one of those rental carpet cleaners. How long should I plan to leave the carpet to dry?

[Alice The Goon]

Here in 15% humidity, about 6 hours to dry. There in 80-90% humidity usually (at least that's what I remember from living there years ago), I'd say 2 days.

[fishbicycle]

I cleaned our carpets last Saturday evening, with an industrial cleaner from Home Depot, and they were completely dry by Monday morning. If you used a machine from the supermarket, I suspect it'd have much less suction power, and take longer for the carpet to dry. I recommend you get a machine from HD, if there's one in your area. The main drawback is that you have to drag it backwards all over your house, but it does a good job.

[gotpasswords]

The rental cleaners will take 2-3 days to dry, depending on your humidity and how worn-out the machine is.

If you can find a friend who owns one of the Bissel or Hoover carpet cleaners, thise things pull out the water a lot better, and the carpets will be dry within a day.