Upholstery cleaning: what you can do and what needs a machine
Most fresh spills are yours to deal with, and dealing with them wrong is how a mark becomes permanent. The line between the two jobs is water: how much goes in, and whether it comes back out.
The first twenty minutes decide the rest
A glass of red wine on a sofa is a blotting job, not a cleaning job. Press a white towel straight down and lift. Repeat on a dry part of the towel until nothing more transfers. What ruins the seat is rubbing, which drives the pigment sideways into fibres that were clean and down into the foam underneath.
Then stop. Most of the damage we get called out to was done by the second and third attempt, with something bought that evening and applied to a patch the size of a dinner plate.
Where home methods work
- Fresh liquid on a synthetic weave: blot, a little warm water, blot again
- Crumbs and pet hair: a rubber glove dragged across the fabric lifts more than a vacuum does
- Salt poured on thick over a fresh red wine spill and left until it darkens
- Baking soda for smell, left overnight and vacuumed out in the morning
Where they make it worse
- Hot water on anything. It sets protein stains and shrinks some weaves for good
- Velvet and silk. The pile crushes and does not recover, and there is no home fix for it
- Anything containing bleach on a coloured fabric, including the products that do not say bleach on the front
- Soaking a cushion through. The water reaches the foam, the foam holds it, and a week later the sofa smells of a cellar
- Rubbing, at any stage, with anything
What a machine does that a cloth cannot
Hot water extraction injects a solution into the fabric under pressure and draws it back out in the same pass. The second half is the point. A cloth puts water in and leaves it to dry down through the foam, taking the dirt with it; extraction lifts the water back out with the dirt still suspended in it.
That is also why a professional clean does not leave a sofa soaked. It comes out damp and dries in four to eight hours with a window open. If it is dripping when we leave, the machine was set wrong.
What we check before touching anything
The label under the seat, and the fibre itself where there is no label. Cotton, linen, viscose and wool all behave differently in water. Viscose is the one that catches people out: a drop of plain tap water on it dries into a visible ring. On an unlabelled second-hand piece we test on the back of a cushion and show you the result before committing to the side you look at.
What does not come out
Ink. Dye transfer from new jeans onto a pale seat. Sun bleaching on the arm that faces the window. And old pet urine that has gone through the fabric into the foam.
Urine on the surface we can treat, smell included. Once it has reached the padding, cleaning the cover buys you a few weeks and no more, and that is something to say at the survey rather than after the invoice. Yellowing on old white cotton is the fibre itself oxidising. The fabric has changed colour; there is nothing sitting on top of it to remove.
Common questions
How often does a sofa need this?
Once a year in a household without pets, twice with a dog or a cat, and after any move. A sofa in daily use collects skin, dust and food however careful you are with it.
Do you take the sofa away?
No. We work in your flat, so there is no van, no weeks without a sofa, and you can see what is being done to it.
How long before we can sit on it?
Four to eight hours with the windows open, at the longer end for thick weaves and corner units. Leave the throw off until it is dry all the way through, because putting it back early traps the last of the moisture.
Send a photo of the piece and the mark
The fabric, the size and what caused it. Price back within two hours.
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