Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Frequently Asked Questions & Useful Resources => Topic started by: Mark Stanley on December 05, 2006, 08:21:04 pm
-
I visited a customer to quote for the cleaning of her sofa and two chairs earlier today.
It was predominantly cream with pink strands.
I opened the cushions and found the strands of material ready for testing.
The pink which turned out to be red (on the inside) it was cotton - no problem with that and tested it for dye fastness - seems OK.
The cream is similar, if not the same in smell when burnt, but thicker in strands than the red mentioned previously. I could not break it.
In the years I have been cleaning, for the most part perhaps 90 - 95 % has been carpets but this year I am going out of my way, for my benefit, as well as the customers to try and understand the other side of our profession, Upholstery.
I have been on basic courses, Prochem and NCCA in the past and they are both good for different reasons.
If all I have learnt over the years is to be very cautious with certain types of furniture.
I follow the text book procedures when approaching upholstery but despite this I have never felt really confident.
Perhaps this is because I feel I am not quite getting the results That I could?
Below should be a picture showing the strands layout on the sofa in question.
Its a flat weave fabric consisting of cotton and I guess some of these - polyester / rayon / acrylic.
The sofa is soiled but with not with any particular staining.
Can the experts amongst you tell me the way you would clean this.
I have cleaned this type before but as i said above i would like to do better.
regards
mark
-
There's no way I can help you with fibre and fabric identification on this Mark.
My only observation from your notes on your testing procedure is that if the yarn does not break on the "pull" test, it's probably a continuous filament synthetic. Wetting it first would make no difference on this test. If you wet cotton, it tends to have a well defined "snap" when it breaks. If it's rayon/viscose, it will break much more easily when wet and it may not even produce an audible "snap"
I'll be soon advertising the NCCA Upholstery Cleaning Workshop on all the forums, but in the meantime, here's a link for it http://www.ncca.co.uk/NCCA_News.htm#Hands_on_Experience_Upholstery
Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
-
Thank you Ken.
I will book on the course.
Regards
Mark
-
I cant understand why my post was moved - Ian?
Regards :)
Mark