[Ian Gourlay]

Do you offer on site dry cleaning.
How do you market it
Is your machine used everyday

Is hot better than cold

[Dynafoam]

Ian,

I have an Ultimate hot solvent machine which has not moved out of the store-room for the past two years or so (a very expensive dust gatherer).

Hot solvent cleaning is far superior to cold, but generaly less efficient than cleaning with water. whist there are items that cannot be wet cleaned I find I encounter them rarely.  I do carry dry cleaning solvents on the van and have found that on the few occasions I have had to dry clean in the past couple of years I have managed well enough without a specialised machine taking up valiable van space.

As to the marketing, I have done none for over thirty-five years, so am not qualified to answer.

John.

[Jim_Lynch]

I have a couple of Kleenrite portables which are capable of both wet and dry cleaning, but the last time I had to dry clean a lounge was over ten years ago. I also used to dry clean curtains, but again, have not done so for many years.
Most fabrics nowadays can safely be wet cleaned using dry technology tools, such as the Drymaster, and you will get far better results with a wet clean. If there is anything but light soiling in the fabric, you and the customer will be very disappointed with the results.
You should still dry clean curtains because of the shrinkage factor, but it's not a pleasant experience to have the fumes and solvent running down your arms, leaving burns. Send them off to the dry cleaner's shop.
It's also a PITA to flush out your machine if you use it for both wet and dry cleaning.

Jim

[mdl3leone]

Hi.

I have just noticed you are chatting about dry cleaning.  I have used all of them and personally think that after having carried out some tests, EnviroDri is the best one.

Have you heard of it?

[classcleaning]

Hi.

I have just noticed you are chatting about dry cleaning.  I have used all of them and personally think that after having carried out some tests, EnviroDri is the best one.

Have you heard of it?

hello
i m fully agree with you .

[maxcarpets]

I dry clean curtains with sahara quite alot, easy money!

[Ian Gourlay]

I wonder what John uses now?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Justin what do you charge for curtain cleaning?

I get asked quite alot now a days, a cleaner near me charges £9 a width but unsure if that is for full or half length, how do you clean linings.

Talk me through the prices if you would, if not here try my email shaun_ashmore@lineone.net

Thanks

Shaun

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I'm with Jim on this one. When I started out I had the equipment and did the occasional job but hated it.

Solvents are not nice and you should be wearing PPE.

Reasons for not liking the job included that to do the job properly you needed to vacuum both front and back. Now try that whilst using equipment and standing in front of a sunny window and you will get very hot. And then complicate it further by standing on step ladders.

It's always difficult to vacuum properly the top part where the curtain is gathered as well.

Cats can leave horrible hair/body oil on the linings which are very difficult to remove as well.

Adding it all up you have to be charging a decent whack to cover the time and cost of solvents. When you tell them the price some customers near faint away.

Taking them down and along to a dry cleaners is a possibility or you can simply suggest that the customer does that as the custy doesn't see the hidden cost of the time taken fetching and carrying them to the dry cleaners. Besides dumping them into a vat of dry cleaning fluid will always give a better clean as the whole fabric is immersed and cleaned - a bit like Dave Lionaha's rug cleaning.

So net result is the custy does all the work and pays out less for curtain cleaning and has more money left to clean more carpets whilst you look professional for not trying to take them for every penny of cleaning.

SO there I was with very few curtain cleaning jobs and of those I had to do it was because they would be incredibly difficult to take down, or the client didn't want to be without their privacy at night. (I did do the occasional job where all I did was just vacuum the curtains as often most of the dirt in curtains is the dust that collects in the top foot or so.).

Conclusion. I got rid of my equipment and breathed a huge sigh of relief......
and then for the next month or so I received about 12 enquiries about curtain cleaning

[Steve Chapman]

dry cleaning curtains is actually very easy:-

vac both sides well

spray with dri pro or similar (wearing mask ! & windows open )

wipe down with a terry towel

collect money 

Job done

steve

[davep]

How effective is this on real dirty curtains Steve?

[Ian Gourlay]

Justin what do you charge for curtain cleaning?

I get asked quite alot now a days, a cleaner near me charges £9 a width but unsure if that is for full or half length, how do you clean linings.

Talk me through the prices if you would, if not here try my email shaun_ashmore@lineone.net

Thanks

Shaun

Shuan

Thought your boss had a dry cleaning shop

How much do Franklins charge for rugs I see they service Johnson Dry Cleaners who are competion to us all.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

She has a shop but I get asked for onsite curtain cleaning, just looking at add ons.

Shaun

[Ian Gourlay]

Shuan

Looking at the FT stuff you sold me 3 years ago its the same price you charge for carpets

2001

Curtain Prices

Thorough Cleaning 37p PER SQ FOOT NOT LINNIEAR

Plus Promite

53P

tHINK YOU HAVE CURRENT PRICES ON   PRESENTATION DISC

[john rees]

      I do quite a few on site curtain cleaning jobs, and I hate cleaning curtains but it's the work that follows after doing them that I like! and If they want the curtains cleaning they are more likely to be regular customers for suites and carpets.
      We did velvet stage curtains a couple of weeks ago which was a £600 job(they supplied the scaffolding) we are going back to do a £900 floor job that we would never had got if we were unable to do the curtains in the first place.

                  all the best
                                    John

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Ian my pricing it a bit ad hoc and the FT I sold you was the only lot I had, just wondering what everyone was charging? John how did you come to get £600 for curtains by sq feet or widths etc ??

Shaun

[maxcarpets]

Full Length £29.99
!/2 Length £19.99

Recycle solvents, you're on a winner!

Justin

[john rees]

Hi shaun,
              They were the biggest curtains I've ever cleaned they were in a community centre and the mayor was visiting so over the phone I explained that I charged about £75 for full lenth and about £45 for half lenth if dry cleaning including pelmets and they told me that they had only budgeted £600 to get them cleaned so they had a good discount because of the size! they were about 40 ft by 18ft drop with a 3 foot pelmet and they were really dirty(30 year old). a good thing to use for stubborn marks is chemspecs heavy duty soil lifter as it can be used for when dry cleaning as long as you don't dilute it with water.on these curtains we had to do quite a bit of blocking too but they came out really well. We used to recycle the solvents but you should only use about 10% recycled with new because when cleaning they just don't smell as fresh if you use more.

                                   all the best
                                                    John

[Shaun_Ashmore]

How long did it take you to do them? and was it a one person job? did you dry clean backs fronts and linings?

Shaun

PS what do you do about the linings if they are not attached?

PPS does anyone do the 'dry steam method'?

[Ian Gourlay]

Full Length half length doe not make sense to me as window withs and hieght varies.

In Communnity Halls Stages etc you are looking at very long drops and very wide curtains

So could you explain a bit more please