Cleaning up on furnishings

Why do so many contracts for cleaning soft furnishings in hotels and public buildings fail to provide assured satisfaction for the customer and good returns for the contract or rental laundries?

Theoretically, this work should provide a superb opportunity for the rental and contract launderer. These buildings have large areas of high quality and high value soft furnishings, designed to make an impact and reflect the status of the establishment.

The furnishings gather atmospheric soiling, sometimes at a very rapid rate in a city centre location, so selling a high quality cleaning service ought to be straightforward. Here price will often be secondary as the customer is really purchasing maintenance expertise and the cost of failure in cleansing will be far greater than marginal cost differences between suppliers.

In practice, the area does not always deliver its promise for several reasons.

The textiles themselves may not have been designed for regular cleansing. The customer may have unreasonable expectations. Perhaps public area soft furnishings need to be purchased against much more clearly defined specifications in the first place.

However, with a little prior knowledge, some technical planning and sensible selling, providing a cleaning service for hotel and public building furnishings can be both successful and profitable and many of the problems avoided.

Atmospheric soiling

Washing is usually far better than drycleaning at removing soiling and staining from large soft furnishings. Drycleaning fluid is excellent at taking out the oily, greasy grime that results from diesel fumes from city streets blowing in through the windows but most atmospheric soiling and accidental staining is water-based and comes out best in washing.

The key here is to minimise mechanical action and temperature and to let the water itself do the work. To minimise print damage and apparent fading of pastel shades, the detergent should not contain any optical brightening agent and should have relatively low alkalinity

There is nothing the launderer can do to reverse the effects of sunlight fading or localised darkening (in the folds of a curtain for example) and any loose dye on a print or solid colour will come out in the wash. So the rental operator who has control of original purchase is at a distinct advantage.

The contract launderer who helps the hotel with its initial choice probably has the best of both worlds. He can control the quality and design a successful wash process without the capital outlay, but it is surprising how few contract launderers build this help with purchasing into their sales planning.

Bleach bad news

Bleach is always is always bad news for any coloured textile or coloured thread. It is surprising how much bleach is used by customers themselves, with much denial and protestation when colours do not miraculously recover in the wash!

Most disappointing of all in this respect are careerwear contracts where the embroidery thread has been poorly specified. Most rayon threads lose colour or change colour if laundered with even a trace of bleach.

Polyester on the other hand can now be dyed so as to resist even quite strong bleach liquors. Yet contract after contract is failing in the third or fourth wash because of unexpected fading of this tiny but vital component.

Dealing with greying

Redeposition of soiling from the cleaning fluid back onto the fabric is a problem which only the most skilled drycleaner can avoid. The problem also occurs in laundering if the detergent used has inadequate suspension power or if too little detergent is added in the first place.

However, greying in drycleaning is a much greater problem than greying in laundering and an expert launderer will frequently find that careful gentle washing will successfully recover an item which has greyed in drycleaning.

Stain removal

It is unlikely that either drycleaning or washing will remove intense areas of staining, ink or rust marking. These all need specialist pre-treatment and modern stain removal reagents are often designed to precede either drycleaning or washing.

The launderer will need a good protein remover for blood, urine marking and protein-based foodstuffs. Drink stains usually involve the vegetable dye tannin, which colours red wine, tea, coffee and beer. Tannin markings must be chemically decoloured using an appropriate tannin remover before machine processing.

There are now good removers for ink and dye marks. Care must be taken with these though, as they could be equally effective at taking out the colour from the printed counterpane or curtain!

Rust marks can be removed effectively with a rust remover but particular care is needed with this reagent because of the associated hazards. The launderer or cleaner should refer to the supplier's safety data sheet for storage and handling.

To be fit for their purpose, rental textiles for use as hotel or public building furnishings need to be capable of withstanding each of the four types of stain removal reagent that have been detailed here as well as washing or drycleaning.

This is not a particularly difficult. The reason so many of these fabrics fail at the moment is because of poor specification, not because they are difficult to manufacture.

Flame retardancy

Health and safety has now taken on a central role for many hotels and public buildings. Many organisations are calling for flame retardancy, not only in the public areas but also in bed assemblies and guest rooms. To ensure flame retardancy, the rental sector is using Pyrovatex treated cotton for heavy curtaining.

In many areas though, polyester FR or modacrylic are now being used rather than treated cotton. Both can be produced in bright, lightweight prints which are easy to launder if the correct precautions are taken.

Polyester is particularly attractive because its lightweight means that several sets of curtains can be processed in a single batch. It is important, though not to load the machine to more than 80% of nominal capacity to avoid pressure creasing. Thermal shock is not a problem if a cool down is included in the cycle. However, drying must reflect the thermoplastic nature of polyester, which can be a particular problem on a calender set up for cotton drying temperatures.

Modacrylic is even more temperature-sensitive, with softening and shrinkage starting to occur at temperatures above 120C.

Accidental feeding of modacrylic textiles into an ironer set up for cotton will result in irreversible concertina creasing at the in-running nip.

Relaxing stretch

Relaxation of the stretch set into a fabric during manufacture will generally occur during either washing or drycleaning. This can be minimised by controlling the chemical action, processing temperature, and, in the case of drycleaning, the amount of water in the machine.

Slight relaxation can generally be reversed, either wholly or partially, using a vertical curtain finishing machine of the Sandershade type. It should not be a problem for a competent professional.

Positive disclaimers

It is quite possible to offer a positive disclaimer within a contract by drawing attention to the obvious benefits of professional cleansing, whilst pointing out the risks and the ways in which these are avoided. The best business is frequently achieved if work can be scheduled on a six-month or 12-month basis, so that efficient production planning becomes possible and the appropriate machines and skills can be brought to bear on every aspect. Only in this way will problems be minimised and maximum customer satisfaction be achieved.

The contract market for processing furnishing fabrics in hotels, public areas and other commercial buildings still offers plenty of opportunities.

The task will be made much easier if the general quality of purchase of these textiles is improved. The shrewd launderer has much to offer the customer in the area of textile purchasing, if an early link can be made.

  Offering this expertise and making the link between textile quality and cleaning results is part of a careful marketing programme. But buying advice has to be buttressed with good technical control on the part of the launderer and a sound understanding of the different features of the various textiles involved.

Only in this way can problems be minimised and potential returns be realised. The professional image of the cleaning contractor has to be underpinned with adequate technical knowledge, updated annually, as the finishes and fabrics change.