Elite Cleaning offers upholstery cleaning to residents of the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. Upholstery cleaning is more  technically challenging than carpet cleaning. Good quality upholstery is usually made of fabrics that include natural, absorbent fibers like cotton, wool and silk.

The upholstery cleaning technician needs to have a working knowledge of fibers, fabrics, cleaning chemistry and soil to ensure the piece is cleaned without damaging it. For example:

A spotting treatment that completely removes a red wine stain from nylon carpeting could ruin a fine piece of upholstery.

A cleaning agent that works well on polished cotton could damage wool fabric.

The dyes in a jacquard fabric could bleed if the piece isn’t dried quickly.

Unfortunately once the damage is done it’s often irreversible. And the uninformed cleaning technician doesn’t have the financial means to compensate the owner.

Upholstery made with fine fabrics often comes with a cleaning tag on it. Often that tag will specify “dry clean only”. It’s apparent that most manufacturers really don’t know much about how to clean the fabrics they use.

The two primary types of upholstery cleaning are “wet” cleaning and “dry” cleaning. “Wet” refers to the use of cleaning agents that are water based. “Dry” refers to the use of cleaning agents that are solvent based.

“Dry” is the safest in terms of assuring there won’t be any dye bleed or fabric shrinkage. And it’s the type of cleaning the furniture tags often specify. However, we try to avoid using it. But because it is solvent based, it’s not good to breathe. So we have to wear a respirator when we use it. And it simply does not remove as much soil from the fabric as wet cleaning.

How Elite Cleaning cleans Upholstery

Our preferred method of cleaning is one that is water based but uses very little water and dries fast. So we get the advantage of water based cleaning agents, without over-wetting the upholstery. Since fabric shrinkage is the result of over-wetting, this method solves that problem.

To address the dye-bleed issue we first test the fabric in an inconspicuous place. In most pieces the dyes are stable enough to allow us to use this method.

Lastly we like it because it works well on human and pet body oil… the primary soil on upholstery.