Fine Rugs Cleaning Process

Cleaning

Hand woven rugs should be hand washed and air-dusted every year, while those in lightly used locations can go without cleaning every 3 years. As the leader in oriental rug care in Utah, we will air-dust, hand wash in a submersion bath, rinse, dry, and detail your rugs to restore its natural appeal. Read about our fine rug cleaning process below.

• Inspection and Testing –Every rug, no matter how large or small, is thoroughly inspected for areas of concern before the wash process. Damaged or structurally weak areas are bound and protected. Bleeding and color loss is checked for a minimum of 24 hours before washing
• Dusting – This is impressive. No more hanging rugs over the clothesline and beating them with a broom. Using compressed air (from a huge 25 horsepower, 10 thousand dollar Ingersoll-Rand compressor) is the safe and extremely thorough way to remove dust and dirt your vacuum can’t even begin to reach. Oddly enough, compressed air is used not only to disperse high volumes of air under pressure, but also to create lift, literally pulling dry soil from the rug. You have to see it to believe it! Using proper tools and the correct pressures, dusting of rugs creates rolling clouds of soil that, once pulled from the rug, are blown off outside by large fans. This is the fun “visual” part of the cleaning process.

Check out the difference that dusting makes!

Dusting a fine handwoven wool rug…

• Washing– Rugs are washed by hand in our 16’x 20’x 1’ foot wash pit. What the pit lacks in height, it makes up for it in length and width. The rugs are shampooed front and back while floating in cool fresh water. Small and large rollers are used to flex the rug on a grid system in the water, releasing trapped soils to be rinsed away. Fresh water comes into the pit at one end and the soiled water is removed at the opposite end by a custom pump system.

Scrubbing a woven rug

• Rinsing – Rinsing takes place twice. The first is in the wash pit using fresh water and compressed air. The second rinse comes after your rugs are brought up out of the pit and is hanging on the drying rack. Water is allowed to drain from the rug and then fresh water is introduced again at the top of the rug. The rug absorbs the fresh water like a sponge. As the clean water moves through the rug it pulls out whatever small amount of soap and soil that might still remain. Depending on the rug and its condition, this final rinse may be done from one to three times.

• Drying and Detailing – Newly cleaned rugs are dried over the night. This is doneby turning the indoor climate of thewash area into the Great Basin. Well, almost. The room temperature levelis set at 90 F, which is maintained throughout the drying process. Several fans are also turned on and placed strategically to move the air through around the rugs.
  In addition to a variety of fans, a huge industrial dehumidifier movesthe dry air back and forthinto the room. The momentthe rugs drythe nextday, the fringe undergoes rinsing, cleaning, combing and drying. At the end of the process, the rugs go through inspection and post-dusting, their nap is then set, and Teflon, or other treatments, can be applied upon request.

Fine rugs hanging out to dry and be detailed. Call now to enlist our fine rug cleaning experts.