The field of Fine Fabric Care, which is obviously the one I enjoy writing about the most, is wider than just upholstery fabrics.
While rugs are not always considered to be fabrics (though the dictionary definition allows for it), anyone who knows fine fabrics and rugs knows these important similarities:
1. High Value: Whether real or perceived, consumers put a higher value on their fine fabrics and rugs than their carpet.
2. Both Require Special Care: Fine Fabrics and Rugs are more often custom designed than mass produced, and therefore each need more individual attention than carpet.
3. Dye Sensitivity: Color Bleeding can be a real risk and expensive consequence of poor cleaning technique, or even with good techniques not testing.
4. Browning: Browning has nearly disappeared as a problem in wall to wall carpeting, but remains a challenge and potential risk to rug and fine fabric cleaners.
5. Texture Damage: Since many fibers used in rugs and upholstery are natural or blends of natural and synthetic fibers, aggressive spotting and/or cleaning techniques can cause damage when the same techniques would not cause damage to synthetic fiber carpet.
While these five issues may seem to be major roadblocks or risks to most carpet cleaners, you can easily see where a rug specialist is the best suited to clean fine fabrics and a fine fabric specialist is also most suited to clean rugs.
| If, as a fine fabric expert, you have been considering making the leap to rug cleaning, stop by and see us on Wednesday afternoon and join Lisa Wagner, the nations leading rug cleaning expert, for her presentation on “Rug Disasters and How to Avoid Them”
Lisa was asked: Why only $97. for all this?
Her answer:
One reason => The Pembertons.
(I guess that’s TWO reasons, Lee and Jim.) =)
And since Pembertons is not the quickest place to get to (it’s sure beautiful though!) – I wanted to make sure that anyone who comes to this half-day event gets at least 10 times their investment in return.
So this is my guarantee to you. You come, I will make it worth the trip.
Special Note From Lee:
If oriental, specialty & area rugs are your interest, don’t miss this! I feel so strongly about this that I will extend our absolute “Satisfaction Or Your Money Back Guarantee” to “Double Your Money Back”! |
One of the most important exercises that I have gone through as a trainer occurred when I made the decision to cease teaching certification courses and craft a course that taught what a cleaning professional truly needs to know about fine fabric upholstery care.
What surprised me was how much shorter the class was!
This isn’t to say that learning fine fabric care is easy, nor that you can really learn everything you need to know to be an expert in just a day.
What it did reveal is that most training formats focus on “nice to know” things that have little, if any, impact on the real world experiences that fine fabric upholstery cleaning technicians and owners face.
These are the things every technician MUST know.
- Communication: If you can’t talk to your client intelligently about the existing condition of their belongings, and what you can (and can’t) do to make them look better and last longer, there isn’t much need to go further. Communication skills are critical.
- Inspection: Knowing what to look for as well as understanding how “use” and “soiling” influence the outcomes and risks in cleaning, then using the above mentioned communication skills will make satisfied customers and keep you from paying big claims.
- Testing: You need to know two things to be able to choose the best cleaning method and assess your risks in cleaning an article of furniture: What fiber family or blend of fiber families are present, and if the fabric is colorfast. It’s that simple, but if you can’t or aren’t willing to do that, each cleaning job you do is a gamble with high risk and very low return.
- Choosing Tools and Cleaning Products. You don’t need to understand the complex chemistry of your cleaning products anymore than you need to know what metal or plastics are used in your tools. What you need to know is what tools and products need to be used, and how to use them.
- Cleaning Methods: You must know what methods work, and have the opportunity to use them yourself, not just see them demonstrated. Having methods taught to you other than those that are proven to work on today’s 21st Century cleaning challenges is a waste of your time.
As I’ve developed our Fine Fabric Care Workshop, there have been times I’ve wanted to add information and unnecessarily complicate the procedure. What I am always brought back to are these five points. If the information doesn’t address these points, its likely not needed.
By keeping the training of yourself and your staff focused here, you can become very skilled at being the best Communicator, Inspector, Tester, Product Assessor, and Cleaner you can be.
Nothing else matters.
If you’d like to know more about the Fine Fabric Care Workshop, I have a very short video (3 Minutes) click here.
Cleaners who use a “one size fits all” approach to choosing upholstery cleaning products and procedures usually end up existing in a world where they skirt safety occasionally, and fall short on the best possible cleaning results most of the time.
This happens because of the fact that you can’t clean “plants and hair” (cotton/linen/rayon and wool) like you do plastic (olefin, polyester, nylon, and acrylic).
The cleaning products and processes that clean one type well do not readily clean the other type well, regardless of safety issues.
Think of it this way: Natural fiber upholstery (plants and hair) absorbs water readily, and is usually stained by common spills and body discharges; it’s also sensitive to over-wetting.
Synthetic fibers (plastics) resist water based spills, but draw in oily soils and spills, whether from petroleum, vegetable, as well as animal oils or fats.
In our upcoming webinar on June 22, you’ll learn which products and procedures best remove water based stains from natural fiber upholstery, and which ones help to remove oily soils from synthetic fibers.
I plan to share techniques that work and I promise that you will learn
“How to Get Dirty Upholstery Clean, and Get It Done Quickly”.
| Join Jim Pemberton the evening of June 22nd for a 60 minute webinar co-sponsored by Bridgepoint and Mikeysboard where Jim will spell out the simple steps you can take and products you can use to clean upholstery both safely AND effectively. |
Don’t miss this one! We will provide more details in upcoming issues of Pembertons CleanTip
May 28th FREE FRIDAY Tile & Grout Cleaning
June 25th FREE FRIDAY Successful Pet Urine Decontamination,
Deodorization, and Stain Removal.
July 16th BOOKED SOLID Seminar by Jeff Cross
We had the opportunity to have a leading expert on water damage restoration, Chuck Dewald, speak to our customers on May 29th.
I had heard that he was an outspoken, somewhat controversial character, and that in some cases suppliers and other industry leaders found his comments and approach to be negative.
We did not find any of those concerns to be valid!
Instead, our customers had the opportunity to hear one of our industry’s most innovative minds share his insights about both the technical and business aspects of the water damage restoration industry.
While the technical information that he shared was very useful, perhaps the best parts of his presentation was his passionate belief that water restorers need to have a better understanding of what they are doing. He also spoke from his heart about the deep regard that he has for those restorers both in the audience and throughout our country.
His passion, his mission, is quite obviously to bring up the level of professionalism and education of the restorers, and for them to best serve the public/the insured, and to help those restorers stand up to insurance companies that truly do not have their interests at heart.
We at Pembertons highly recommend that any restorer who wants to “be their best” take the time to attend a class taught by Chuck’s team at their home base in Morristown, Tennessee.
https://www.americandryinginstitute.com/
American Drying Institute
5740 West Andrew Johnson Highway
Morristown, TN 37814
Chuck Dewald III
Phone: (423) 312-6777
Fax: (423) 318-0672
Area Rug Cleaning, Classes, Fine Fabric Care | Jim Pemberton | 
September 30, 2011 3:19 pm | 
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