[Mike Halliday]

last year I clean a suite which contained an acid sensitive dye which turned the green fabric pink. I could not correct the problem and my insurance company replaced the suite.

Dave lee has just had the same problem with with exactly the same suite.

i thinks is very important that everyone is aware of this suite.

there are pictures of this suite on;

www. truck moun ters .co.uk look at 'problem suite'

moderators, please leave this link on because everyone needs to see this suite to stop anyone else getting caught out.

Mike

[Art]

Mike,

 Any chance you can post a picture on here? as some of us can't get on that site.


Arthur

[Mike Halliday]

here it is

[Doug Holloway]

Mike,

Thanks for posting picture.

I have cleaned this type of suite in the past without problem.

What did you use and what did Dave use , was it MS.

Cheers

Doug

[Mike Halliday]

this type of suite .... there are lots of suites like this which are probably safe to clean I'm warning about this exact suite,

I cleaned it with M'S and rinsed off with freshwater, I don't know what Dave used.

Mike

[Spot On cleaning]

What was the length of time before this happened Mike, was it appearing straight away, or did it take a few hours or longer?

I was also wondering if this suite is prone to do this after a length of time, how long it would have taken to dry naturally or was it dried by fan?

Dave

[steve cardy]

Mike,
IS the suite a type of chenille as i had a blue suite made of chenille and that started to get the acid burn effect?

[Doug Holloway]

Mike ,

I have cleaned exactly the same type of suite several times without problems and am trying to find a common thread between your and Daves' problems .

If you both used microsplitters then it could be a factor.

Cheers

Doug

[Liahona]

To my knowledge this can be reversed although when the same thing happened to me I didnt know it could be and ended up buying the customer a new one. It is only in England that you can make this type of claim and the insurers would pay out. In the U.S. there isnt any type of treatments risk. Ayway, Paul Pearce told me how to sort the problem out but I cant remember what it was that had to be done, only that it can be restored to "normal". What causes the colour change is because of a tracer dye that is used in the process of colouring the fabric in the first place. You can watch it change from the pink to green just by using acids and alkalines, very nice to look at as it changes instantly from one to the other. I just was never able to leave it at the green colour , it always went back to red, either insantly as I said or over a few hours. To my knowledge this only happens to green going to red or pink but again Paul I am sure will know if other colours behave as badly. Best, Dave.

[Mark Roberts]

The problem is ph sensitive fabric, and is normally solved by leaving the fabric at exactly 7 on the scale.
Like Liahona Paul Pearce showed me this exact fabric last year, and the problem can be solved, its fairly straight forward but does not always work permanently.
As ms dry neutral, it could be the tap water which is slightly acidic or using cleaning solutions which leaves the suite in a ph state above or below 7. A real nasty one this fabric as you cant really test for it. A good reason why we all need treatment risk insurance.

[Doug Holloway]

Mark,

I find the MS dry neutral a spurious argument  , as without water ther is no dissociation and therefore no pH so everything dries neutral .

When mosture is added however , water vapour etc then the pH will not be neutral.

it doesn't make sense that sodium tripolyphosphate which is alkaline will become neutral unless there is something to neutralise it.

http://www.chemicalland21.com/industrialchem/inorganic/STPP.htm

Cheers

Doug

[Mark Roberts]

I can see your point, and the ph levels for ms vary anyway depending on which one you use i.e the woolsafe one is 6.3 etc. I dont think it really matters what solution you use, this is a problem with the fabric which normally shows itself in the weeks after you have cleaned it, and sometimes straight away!

[Doug Holloway]

Mark,

It is the other ingredients such as buffers which will determine the pH of the solution .

I am more intersted in the effect that the absence of detergents will mean less phosphate is removed , as poorer wetting / suspension will occur and this is causing the colour change.

Must be worth looking into .

If anyone has a sample of this material I would be intersted in doing a few experiments.

Cheers

Doug

[Everbrite]

How do you identify the fabric?

[Mark Roberts]

It is the other ingredients such as buffers which will determine the pH of the solution .

I thought ph is a measure of Hydrogen ions in solution. A buffer simply stops ph change, and acts as a sponge allowing hydrogen ions to be absorbed until it reaches its point of exhaustion. Only after this point will the product change ph when in dissociation and will vary with temperature etc.

I cant see wetting or suspension making any difference, as this problem occurs when using detergents, which we have seen, and as you cant really test for it, its just a matter of knowing how to put it right

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Mark,

Have we seen this problem with detergents or is it a MS phenomenon?

Cheers

Doug

[Mark Roberts]

From what ive seen and the people ive spoken too, its possible to change the colour of the fabric using any solution (ms, detergents, ammonia, acid rince) going left and right on the ph scale. Only when you leave it at 7 it solves the problem. Even when some have solved the problem it has come back a few weeks later because the the problem solver solution evaporated..(there are a few ways to solve it) Is it only just this fabric?(not likely gov).
Like you say it would be nice if the people that have this fabric available to them to post some results, as its been around for a while now and only when people have problems and claims made against them do we here about it. Is there a test that works on the day? From what ive seen you can only test then leave to dry natually, even then it might bite back you a few weeks down the road...its the stuff of nightmares.

[Mike Halliday]

When i had a problem with this fabric i could get an immediate response with a strong acid solution, so this colour change can be tested for

just carry a small bottle of solution of around 2-3ph and apply it to an inconspicuous area.

Mike

[Dave_Lee]

As Mike has stated I did have the same problem recently. I have copied the last post I made on the subject in another forum, for your interest:-
Thanks for the info Shaun. I sent Mike Halliday the details and he has replied that the exact thing did happen to him last year with the exact same fabric. Anyway the top and bottom of it is, that the fabric dye is ACID sensitive and reacts to an acid OR fresh water rinse. I rinsed with a very dilute self neutralising detergent, thinking I was playing safe - If I had used a stronger alkaline non neutraising one, it probably would not have happened. Just shows how you can be taken unawares. After I was called back to it, I tested unafected areas with A neutral, alkaline and an acid solution. The first two had no effect, but when I applied a small amount of the acidic solution the fabric immediatly turned red.
I used a light spray application of the most basic alkaline, Sodium BiCarbonate, brushed it in and the redness faded away in minutes. Nine days later it hadn't returned, so hopefully thats that. Beware of this fabric!
Another pic,
Dave.

[Graeme@Access]

Hi,

From what i remember Paul Pearce saying, these dyes are called indicator dyes.  If these are the same as the indicator dyes in chemistry (the ones on litmus paper for example) then they alter colour with relation to pH.

Litmus paper is
red in acid (pH <7)  >> use distilled vinegar to change it to red
green @ neutral pH =7
blue in alkali (pH >7) >> use sodium bicarbonate solution to change it to blue

On the NCCA course Paul showed us a fabric that had been changed to a red coulour by the acid rinse and he made it blue/green again by spraying it with sodium bicarbonate solution.

Maybe these couches are coloured using these types of dyes?  Its worth a try at least.

Hope this helps

Graeme Thurston
Access Cleaning Solutions