Brown water marks in my upholstery

Get me clean

On this particular job the customer had moved to Warrington from Cheltenham. She did

ask an upholstery cleaner to clean her upholstery however as you can see without much

success.

When we went to view the item to be cleaned we advised the customer that as someone

has attempted to clean this the water marks may be sealed within the fabric.

In addition to this, the upholstery had been reupholstered and the previous covering was

underneath what we were cleaning.

So how did we go about achieving the results and removing those brown stains? A ph

test was carried out to understand what if any chemicals were still held within the fibres.

The test showed neutral results.

Well before we started the customer asked could the fabric be dry cleaned. Our answer

was no am afraid not. So we proceeded

Firstly we did a sample area. What we did not want to do was apply our chemical and

nothing happened.

The action we took was to apply a chemical dedicated to cotton fabric upholstery. This

had a ph of 3 which is very acidic. We have to wear gloves for this procedure.

The sample area was then left to dwell for 15 minutes. The area was then flushed with

hot water around 70c. The area was then terry towelled and was inspected by both

myself and the customer. We could still see a faint line, not much but enough to know it

was there. The next step was to apply an acid rinse. This time the ph was 5. Not as

strong as the original chemical bit this one was applied neat. Dwell time 5 minutes.

Rinsed. Stain gone.

Happy days.

So the same treatment was given to all the sofa as used in our sample.

And finally a third clean using an Alkaline cleaner.

As you can see marks had gone.

So today we returned to see the settee. The reason for this was the customer wanted

stain protector applied and this could only be applied when the upholstery was bone dry.

So the moral to the story is that if you spill something on your upholstery call me to come

and clean it for you. It will be cheaper and less of a heartache if you attempt to clean and

seal in the stain

Brown water marks in my upholstery

Water marks in your upholstery can be an eye sore, and on occasions prove difficult to remove. The stains can be caused by a number of

liquids such as fruit juice, tea, coffee, alcohol.

The owner when this happens panics, normally adds water to dilute the original stain, and thus spreads it. No matter how much dabbing or

scrubbing you do, when that stain dries your upholstery is making a statement.