[jim mca]

Jaime

Do you run a training cource on upholstery

Jim

[Jamie Pearson]

I do one to one training courses that can be customised depending on what is desired.

[Jamie Pearson]

Here is a video I did in reply to a previous thread showing a few techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY6eJPa_S7I&sns=em

[M.Acorn]

Have the Prochem hidey hose hand tool,,but think I am going to walk.
And yeah I lowered my upholstery cleaning price a bit,as was not booking any of the quotes I was doing.
Although I did do £400 worth a couple of months back,for someone who lives opposite me,in the biggest house in the village 

[wynne jones]

Mark, if you are not that busy maybe decide to quote each job. This way you are far more likely to get the job, can price it right and suggest other things that need doing at the same time.

[Jamie Pearson]

Have the Prochem hidey hose hand tool,,but think I am going to walk.
And yeah I lowered my upholstery cleaning price a bit,as was not booking any of the quotes I was doing.
Although I did do £400 worth a couple of months back,for someone who lives opposite me,in the biggest house in the village 

That would work but ideally you want to spray the fabric with it from about 2 feet away after a good spray with Dri Pro and brush in to give it a moisture barrier.

A good vac off. More DriPro (or equiv) brush vac, towel, air mover.

As Lindsay said it takes a fair amount of time but the results will be good and its fairly fool proof if you have good upholstery cleaning skills/experience.

Obviously you need to be getting good many so you can afford to put in the time.

I would go back to the client and explain that you have done a little research and found more about this piece and are worried that the next guy might not be so cautious. Explain that you may need 2-3 hours to hand clean it and tell her the price.

If you want me to talk you through this give me a call during business hours. Always happy to help.

[Hilton]

We do work for Laura Ashley both curtains and upholstery, we have worked for the owner of Laura Ashley at his mansion in the country,so have cleaned what seems like a bundle of their suites, I can not remember the last time we dry cleaned anything let alone any of these suites.

I accept their are limitations on their suites and curtains and if they are 'soil saturated' its unlikely you will get the desired results and this has to be explained to lower expectations, dry cleaning will have little or no effect what so ever, apart from filling the home with fumes.

In our experience 'Dry Clean Only' is for the manufacturers benefit only and is to protect them against claims for misuse or amateur ( if I can use that word) cleans, there are very very few pieces of furniture that can not be wet cleaned.

I would not walk I would do it after explaining the situation if only just to remove the fear and add it to the experience bank.

[M.Acorn]

Decisions decisions !!
When I do upholstery I tend to hold the tool a good few inches away from he item being cleaned,and just give the fabric a light misting,then set to work sucking it out again with the tool,while using an air mover,to dry it rapidly.
Will see what occurs next week  only got one £220 pound job booked so far,oh and a small one on Friday.
Ned to be making over £300 a week just to break even,now I have all the bills and everything else to pay on my own 

[robert meldrum]

Hilton

Surely the owner of Laura Ashley fabrics would have far better quality products in their home ?

[Hilton]

Absolutely not,

He has EVERYTHING from LA , im talking all furniture, curtains, lamp shades etc if LA do it he has it ,amongst of course the usual antiques etc.

[Jamie Pearson]

I have a client who owns a furniture empire in Scotland.

When their new house was built it was ll their lines.

Then the bespoke made stuff arrived a couple of months later.

A bit of a Ratner moment.

[Hilton]

I should point out LA is just a small part of his business empire.

[Thackley Cleaning Services]

I own a dry cleaning business and a wet cleaning carpet and upholstery business so i can see the things from both sides.

If you know what you are doing then you can wet clean dry clean only suites.  However, be prepared for a little texture loss and handling (on piled fabrics - and despite using specialist velvet brushes, once the pile is wet you can never get it back feeling and looking the way it was).  some cotton fabrics arent pre-shrunk and they will shrink so be careful.

we wet clean dryclean only piled fabrics all the time but we make sure we do the whole lot so the changes are suite-wide and  then the changes in texture arent that noticeable.  we also warn the customers beforehand that texture loss and colour changes are probable.

Dry cleaning is very good at removing oil / grease and general surface dirt from fabrics.  What it wont do it remove water marks and any food stains.  It just doesnt touch them without proper pre-spotting of stains and to be honest, on a piled fabric you dont want to put a water based treatment on just a couple of areas because the pile changes 'crushes' and the light reflects differently to the rest of the cushion / suite hence causing changes in shading.

Like Jason, i would go in with something like fabric restorer with a little citrus booster or on really bad suites ultrapac - but ive never used powerburst and i dont think i ever will.  dont leave it on too long and then go over the fabrics using the cfr making sure we make plenty of dry passes and then we use specialist dry cleaning velvet brushes that raise the pile back.

the trick is to use the brush pretty much immediately to reset the pile.

hope that helps and if anyone has any questions about dry cleaning please feel free to ask.  im always looking on here to improve our wet cleaning knowledge because there are some really clever guys on here and if I can help others in any way i will.

[M.Acorn]

Thanks for all the input guy's !! Have fab restorer,and ultra pac,and the shampoo stuff too from Prochem,have solvents here too.
Will see what transpires on Monday

[wynne jones]

Hang on I've missed something, suddenly we're talking ultrapac on silk?

[Jamie Pearson]

............I cant believe we are talking about using anything as alkaline on natural fibred upholstery.

Be careful guys.

[pete jones]

ultrapac on a brick red l a suite will turn it orange black. I know this as I did a test on some of the fabric.Ive cleaned the said suite with fab restore and ultimate master and a cfr upholstery tool came up great.Before you do it spray some f and f on the lowest back corner and go back the next day.60 is a good price.pete jones.

[wynne jones]

Hey Mark

We don't want you coming on here next week with a new thread 'Oh no, you'll never guess what happened!'

Leave it! Now is not the time to be messing about, you are not thinking straight at the moment and you are a bad luck magnet at the best of times.

There are thousands of carpets where you live just waiting for you to clean them. Less risk, easier money. Save the interesting stuff for when you are on top of things.

Good Luck!

[M.Acorn]

Cheers,I have cleaned loads of upholstery though,and won't be willing to risk anything.
Don't want to tempt fate so I won't say anything else 

[wynne jones]

Yep if you trash it you got to keep it to yourself.