[oliver collins]

Hi Guys

Any curtain cleaning advice wanted apart from the obvious ie colour bleed have a large working mens club interested in have the curtains cleaned.

Regards Oliver Collins Rise & Shine Cleaning 

[jacko]

Hi Oliver - what material are the curtains ? What equipment do you have?

[oliver collins]

Thankyou for your interest

I have a extracta exel

I was going to sue either pure clean by prochem or a powered cotten cleaner the materiel is  green brushed cotton with a cream i mean yellow lining as it has been in a working mans club for 12 years.

I was going to pre vac for the dust, test for clour trasnsfer and get my four turbo dryer on the job to minamize the chance of dye transfer i was thinking of an acid rinse as well might seem like over kill though

Any imput is welcome

Regards Oliver Collins Rise & Shine Cleaning

[Simon Gerrard]

Gosh, that sounds like a risky strategy to me. Cleaning cotton curtains with cotton linings with a water based system??? If they shrink you're into nightmare territory and the fact that they are from a working mens club means they'll be pretty dirty too.

If I were you I'd take them down and have them professionally dry cleaned and then only after making it very clear indeed to the client that they may shrink, albeit a bit.

Simon

[Ricky M]

yes make sure you tell them about the poss of shrinkage , Very important , get them to sign a waver

trust me it can cause issues if you dont 

[clinton]

Hi olliver

I would go with simons post an thats what i do and pass them on to a dry cleaners putting something on for youself

Did that only last month and the cleaners even came and put them back up for me

[murky]

If they are in a working mans club and up for 12 years I dread to think what condition they are actually in.

Dont forget they were heavy into smoking and in a big way then and they will be minging with dust and nicotine.

As the other posts I would go and measure up, measuring includes the drop top to bottom and the width, look inside the back and you will see the panels  where the lining is, count how many panels there are including the half panels at the end. This will tell you how big they are, tell the cleaner and also that they are lined, it all adds up.  Some dry cleaners only work on weight which makes it harder for you to get a price I'm afraid.

You will probably have to have them re fireproofed as it is a public place. You can do that as an addon when you rehang them.

Tell the club you will get back to them with a price, go home and start ringing round your local cleaners and get prices, put your extra on top and dont forget new hooks because the old ones will be very brittle and fall apart when you rehang them, which will drive you mad.

Good luck with them.

Murky


 

[Jim_77]

Some wise words above, obviously from experience

One thing that isn't clear yet but is the most important question:  Why do they want the curtains cleaned?  If you don't know why, you can't match a solution to the problem

If it's for visual appearance of the linings, you might be in trouble because dry cleaning won't really fix the yellowing from the nicotine.  It'll improve it a bit, there will be a lot removed, but it won't look all evenly "clean" and light coloured again.

Just dealing with dust & dead flies etc is simple, you can clean in-situ.  vac, spray with detergent free solution & towel off.

Smell - no problem, vac, spray & wipe as above adding deodoriser into your solution (i'd probably do that as standard anyway).

Maybe the top level service would be to have them dry cleaned off-site, hang them back up and then treat with deodoriser to finish off.

Good shout about flame retardant treatment, you'll need to ask if they are obliged to have this done.  If so it needs to be the last process, if i remember right a flame retardant isn't affected by dry cleaning but water based products will remove it.

get yourself a hunter turbo vac, they're brilliant

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Flame retardant does get removed with dry cleaning, we have to clean the filters out on our dry cleaning machine when we get a pair in our shop.

Shaun

[peter maybury]

There are a lot of things to consider with curtain cleaning and even if you take the curtains to a dry cleaner there is still a good chance that they will shrink. Even most dry cleaners will get customers to sign a disclaimer. The schrinkage may not be an issue if the curtains are not in a reveal but if they are in a reveal then it does become a problem. Very often the curtains will schrink more than the linings so you need to have a look at whether the lining are shorter than the curtains, is the lining sewn to the curtain or is it loose.
Is there any adjustment on the hanging tape? would it be possible to lower the rail easily.
Although you get the customer to sign a disclaimer it is always a good idea to have a solution to the problem even if if may cost the customer a little more money. It is better than just walking away from the problem.
Most of our curtain cleaning is carried out in situ as this has big cost advantages for the customer. Most schrinkage problems are foreseeable and very often we will price in for taking up the lining by a few inches an not even mention it to the customer.
Experience will show you the best method for various fabrics and will also give you the confidence to sell the job to customers the most important thing is to have your terms and conditions and to get the customer to sign. Most people will understand what you are up against but you can not afford to take the chance. Most fire retardant treatments are not effected by solvent dry cleaning but this is not a general rule and so it is better to retreat any way as time will degrade any treatment. If you would like a copy of conditions email me and I will forward.

Peter

[Jim_77]

There's a 5% dimensional stability tolerance for curtain cleaning.

Shaun - I remember Stapro's documentation stating that dry cleaning doesn't affect their products but water based cleaning does, because the flame retardant is water based.  Thinking about it there are many different types of flame retardant so probably some come off but others don't, in theory at least.

[Mike_Roper]

I think what blocks Shauns filters will be the white backcoating fire retardent that you see on the back of fabrics.
Mike

[jlo]

Although you get the customer to sign a disclaimer it is always a good idea to have a solution to the problem even if if may cost the customer a little more money. It is better than just walking away from the problem.
any way as time will degrade any treatment. If you would like a copy of conditions email me and I will forward.

Peter

Hi Peter

Please could you send me a copy of your T & D?

Many Thanks 

[gwrightson]

Gosh, that sounds like a risky strategy to me. Cleaning cotton curtains with cotton linings with a water based system??? If they shrink you're into nightmare territory and the fact that they are from a working mens club means they'll be pretty dirty too.

If I were you I'd take them down and have them professionally dry cleaned and then only after making it very clear indeed to the client that they may shrink, albeit a bit.

Simon

always a good idea to let the custy know of possible shrinkage, however their is , I believe an accepted tolerance of shrinkage when it comes to cleaning curtains. Not to sure exactly what the percentage is or where I have read it  , but i,m sure the industry standards do make this point some where.
I,ll have a google.
Geoff

[Shaun_Ashmore]

When we get the curtains with the 'rubber style' flam retardant on it we won't clean them because of the problems and time to clean the filters, when we clean retardant curtains there is nearly always a white powder collected in our dry cleaner.

Shaun

[peter maybury]

This is the powdery residue that you will get as an overspray if you do not take precautions when applying the fire retardant.
Peter

[benny d]

Just dealing with dust & dead flies etc is simple, you can clean in-situ.  vac, spray with detergent free solution & towel off.

Smell - no problem, vac, spray & wipe as above adding deodoriser into your solution (i'd probably do that as standard anyway).

Hey Jim, What detergent free solution would you recommend?
I ask this as I dont do curtains at the moment, but if "Mrs Jones" wants her curtains to look and smell fresher, it seems like a not too involved system?
Thanks in advance

[Jim_77]

I use m-power for curtains, as it isn't perfumed but leaves a very mild "just cleaned" sort of smell behind.  Any detergent-free product you'd use on natural fibres would do the job really.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Jim are you usually a steam man or do you hwe or spray towel?

Shaun

[Jim_77]

spray & towel, I don't screw around with steam

If they look visibly dirty or have an odour problem they go away to the dry cleaners, I either do the take down/rehang myself and add a bit for my trouble or just pass them over to the dry cleaners directly, who i exchange referrals with anyway.