Stairs and Hallways: Priced per Flight and per Step

The staircase is the most-walked carpet in a two-storey house and the first to show it. It's also the one people never know how to price — by the step, by the flight, by the hour? Here's how we do it.

One flight, one price

• Staircase, up to 14 steps$79
• Stairs, counted one by one$7 per step
• Hallway$40

A staircase is the whole flight — what most homes need — at one flat price, up to fourteen steps. A few steps down to a landing or a split-level are counted one by one at the per-step price. If your flight is longer than fourteen, book the staircase and add the extra steps individually; the calculator does the sum.

Why a flat flight: stairs are slow — each step is cleaned on its own, edge to edge. Pricing the flight rather than the hour means you know the number before we start, and pricing a few steps individually means nobody pays for a flight they don't have.

The usual upstairs job

In Kent, Lynnwood, Tacoma and Issaquah the typical carpet booking is the staircase plus the bedrooms above it, sometimes the upstairs hallway. Added up separately:

• Staircase$79
• Bedroom$70
• Master bedroom$80
• Hallway$40

The calculator also has packages — two bedrooms plus the stairs, three rooms plus the hallway — that come out cheaper than the rows added one at a time. Pick the package if it matches; if it doesn't, the rows are the rows.

Traffic lanes and edges

Stairs and hallways are where the grey traffic lane lives, and the traffic lane is mostly grit ground into the pile. It comes out; what doesn't come out is the wear the grit has already done to the fiber, which is why the middle of an old stair can look a shade lighter than the edges after a clean — the pile is worn, not dirty. We'll show you the difference on the day.

Drying on the stairs

Stairs dry a little faster than rooms because air moves up them. Walk on them in socks after a few hours; fully dry overnight. Keep the dog off them until then — a wet stair is the one place a claw leaves a mark.

Carpet cleaning cost per room — the full list