[Nick Vassilev]

Hi guys.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this one.

A customer complained yesterday morning that the sofa we cleaned on Sunday was still wet. In the afternoon she called again to say that marks have appeared on the seating cushions.

Today the client told us she had taken the cushion covers off and put them on the central heating radiators to dry yesterday. She added that the cushions were filled with feathers. 

The client is a tenant and informed us their landlord was holding their deposit (£3000!!!) due to this. She wants to know what are we going to do about this.

Thanks in advance.
Nick

Have you had a similar situation? What do you think has happened?

[Graeme@Access]

Hi Nick,

Its hard to tell from photos but it looks like a flatweave cotton/ linen, can you confirm this?

If it is then the fact its been wet and alkaline seems to have browned it. I would go in with an oxidising shampoo. Prochem fibre shampoo, oxibrite and fibre buff mix.  You want the cushions so you can do it offsite a couple of times and get them dry fast.

Unfortunately we had this once on a pure white flatweave on a single cushion that didnt dry fast enough and the corner browned.

Natural fabric upholstery we allways make very acidic now to retard against this.

Hope this helps

Graeme
Access Cleaning Solutions

[Steve. Taylor]

Nick if you could anwser a few questions i am sure you will get more help

what chemicals did you clean with ,what did you rinse with also can you confirm the material

MY GUESS is a indicator dye hard to tell from that picture

is it a pinkish colour?? do you know if any protector has been apllied to this sofa??

It could need misting with bicarb

Like i say the more you can give us the more responses you will get.

[Steve. Taylor]

Just read this post again did you towel dry & or turbo dry looks a bit more than just browning

[Nick Vassilev]

Thanks for your response.

The sofa has definitely not been turbo dried and I have doubts it has been towel dried either.
If it was browning wouldn't that affect the whole of the sofa and not just the cushions?

I will get some more info from our cleaner and will post tomorrow.

Thanks.

[Simon@arenaclean]

It could be the oil from the feathers, which might explain why it has only affected cushions. Take a look at the inner cushion and see if there are marks. This can also happen with horse hair when over-wet or using alkali. I would try an acidic rinse first then dry, or failing that the oxibrite/fibrebuff solution about. Mix with shampoo and apply foam only. Hope that helps mate.

[peter maybury]

cleaned fabric still wet the next Day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I had crap machinery 20 years ago I would not leave a fabric that wet it would take 24 hours to dry.
If this situation does not wake you up to doing things differently it will not be long before a situation arises that will..

Peter