[DanielWelford]

On Thursday I cleaned a green 3 piece suite. The suite did not have a description of what the fabric was, so did a test on the back of the suite to ensure the cleaning process that I was to use would be appropriate i.e HWE, using Prochems Fabclean.

Test done and dried........great!

Proceed with clean, and comes up smashing, punter over the moon.

Receive call Friday morning, suite now covered in brown streaks. (However, the base cushions not affected!).

The suite is only 4 years old has not been recovered, and has never been cleaned before. I can only describe the fabric as being of a chenile ilk, but not having the same softness, (vague i know).

If any of you cleaning legends can offer any advice I would be very grateful, as I already own a very nice suite, and dont have room for another.

Cheers Dan

[Dynafoam]

Dan,

It sounds like you may need to brush up on your technique.

Failing to effectively cover the surface by overlapping cleaning strokes, therby leaving 'dirt margins' is one cause. This will be more likely to occur if a pre-vacuum was not performed, especially on the back and sides. This can be rectified by a thourough re-clean.

Another posibility is that you have used an open-spray upholstery tool that causes overspray that has not been corrected by additional drying strokes and the wetter streaks have caused either wicking from the substrate or possibly cellulostic browning (if the fabric has a plant-based fibre).

If the edges of the streaks are fairly strait then the former is the more likely cause, if they are wavy (water-mark) then one of the latter.

For cellulostic browning, treatment with a browning prescription (subject to pre-test) will be required.

In the first instance I sugest you re-clean a section using B108 Fabric Restorer as a pre-spray, with good agitation, then rinse with B109 Fibre and Fabric Rinse, taking care over the technique points mentioned earlier. Finish the clean with french-folded towels and then quick-dry the test section.

If this resolves the problem, proceed with the remainder of the suite.

John.

[lee_gundry]

any chance of a photo.

keep us imformed.

Lee G

[Peter_Blackburn]

Hi Daniel,

             Guess what!!, I had exactly the same problem a couple of weeks ago after cleaning a 'Next' chenille suite. :

After the initial clean the suite looked fantastic and the customer was very impressed with the result but like yourself I received a call a week later from the same customer complaining that the suite had dried patchy and looked awful, so I agreed to call back to re-clean.

On inspecting the suite I found the marks had been left by the hand tool during the 1st clean and would not brush out even after spraying with water, after re-cleaning the suite I carefully reset the pile and dried off immediately using and air mover, problem sorted.

So you have all been warned, when cleaning Chenille type suites ALWAYS SET PILE IMMACULATELY IN THE CORRECT DIRECTION BEFORE SETTING THE DRIER AND REMIND CUSTOMER THAT NO SHOULD GO NEAR THE SUITE UNTILL DRY. It only takes 1 sq cm of this fabric to dry in the wrong direction to leave a dirty looking mark and can only be rectified by soaking the fabric and resetting.  


Thanks
Pete

 

[Dynafoam]

Peter,

This is why I said to finish with a towell.

Not only does it set the nap, but also removes some of the remaining water.

John.