White cotton sofa didn't come clean (wicking?)

[Drew Moore]

Great videos and nice work !! Didn't Interlink quit selling Buff All ? I think OxyBuff replaced it . Anyone know ?
All the Best, Ed

Yeah I was browsing the interlink site last night looking for this stuff. And yes oxybuff replaced buff all, the site says they combined three into 1. Also Chemspec makes something similar for Haitian cotton..

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

Yeah I was browsing the interlink site last night looking for this stuff. And yes oxybuff replaced buff all, the site says they combined three into 1. Also Chemspec makes something similar for Haitian cotton..

Used to be called Haitian cotton cleaner. Same stuff though.
Follow directions for pretty much a one step process for extraction cleaning.
Only caveat for you newbies is don't apply this product on anything with color as it will destabilize dye like nothing else.

 

[Drew Moore]

View attachment 59275

Used to be called Haitian cotton cleaner. Same stuff though.
Follow directions for pretty much a one step process for extraction cleaning.
Only caveat for you newbies is don't apply this product on anything with color as it will destabilize dye like nothing else.

Good to know about the color caveat. Now it's becoming clear why you're member of the year

Wasn't for Mike, us newbies would be browning out sofas and leaving bleach spots on carpet and we wouldn't know our asses from a hole in the ground.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

Good to know about the color caveat. Now it's becoming clear why you're member of the year

Wasn't for Mike, us newbies would be browning out sofas and leaving bleach spots on carpet and we wouldn't know our asses from a hole in the ground.

I tell clients all the time how I know to be so careful...
It's because I've fuked up so many things inside someone's home, you can't even imagine.
25 years in, there isn't an experience I haven't already had that's negative...

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

Cut my teeth in this business working for a Bait and Switch company.
Trained for about 10 days before I was thrown into the fray, sorting shit out on my own, carrying a Ninja in the back of my S-10 pickup working the mean streets of San Francisco every day.
Got through with a huge dose of balls and bullshit but a lot of fabric and flooring got fuked up in the mix.
Those experiences get burned into your memory banks.
Just ask @emeraldclean.... He got his start in this business almost exactly like I did.

 

[Drew Moore]

I tell clients all the time how I know to be so careful...
It's because I've fuked up so many things inside someone's home, you can't even imagine.
25 years in, there isn't an experience I haven't already had that's negative...

I can imagine you have experienced more than once that feeling of fear coursing through your veins and that feeling of your body temperature shift from normal to sweating like a whore in church.

But seriously I respect your advice and I appreciate you giving us rooks the right information.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

I can imagine you have experienced more than once that feeling of fear coursing through your veins and that feeling of your body temperature shift from normal to sweating like a whore in church.

But seriously I respect your advice and I appreciate you giving us rooks the right information.

The first week I cleaned on my own, I used some Haitian on a striped cotton sofa...
It was a white sofa with bright blue stripes.
I acted like I had cleaned for years and proceeded to clean.
The blue lines immediately blurred and migrated into the white.
It was like watching a horror film play out in real life.
I immediately stopped, switched to a neutral cleaner and proceeded with the cleaning.
I got the clients attention and asked her if she had ever used a spotting agent on the fabric.
When she said yes, I said, "That's why these spots had migrated...because the alkali present in the area created the dye migration".
Not my proudest moment but I had kids to feed and the prospect of losing my job because I ruined a sofa wasn't an option.

 

[emeraldclean]

Cut my teeth in this business working for a Bait and Switch company.
Trained for about 10 days before I was thrown into the fray, sorting shit out on my own, carrying a Ninja in the back of my S-10 pickup working the mean streets of San Francisco every day.
Got through with a huge dose of balls and bullshit but a lot of fabric and flooring got fuked up in the mix.
Those experiences get burned into your memory banks.
Just ask @emeraldclean.... He got his start in this business almost exactly like I did.

Yes we are alumni of "The School Of Hard Knocks" Mike.
What really helped me out when it came to cleaning " delicates" was taking a uph cleaning class back in 1990 taught by Wally Webber.
Taught us how to identify fiber, ITQ ( inspect, test and qualify)
He was a pioneer in the industry and very well respected within his peers ( IICRC instructors).
Yes back in the day had a weeks training , thrown into the trenches and learnt alot from trial and error.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

Yes we are alumni of "The School Of Hard Knocks" Mike.
What really helped me out when it came to cleaning " delicates" was taking a uph cleaning class back in 1990 taught by Wally Webber.
Taught us how to identify fiber, ITQ ( inspect, test and qualify)
He was a pioneer in the industry and very well respected within his peers ( IICRC instructors).
Yes back in the day had a weeks training , thrown into the trenches and learnt alot from trial and error.

Still remember that striped sofa like it was yesterday.
It was in the portrero hill neighborhood

 

[emeraldclean]

Still remember that striped sofa like it was yesterday.
It was in the portrero hill neighborhood

First sofa I wrecked .... 100% rayon.
Bled and shrunk.
Company I worked for was cool. They wanted us to clean everything without holding us responsible.
Later we started doing shrink and colourfast test in inconspicuous areas ( excess fabric behind skirtings by back legs of sofa worked well.
Or we tested back of seat cushion were zipper was.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

First sofa I wrecked .... 100% rayon.
Bled and shrunk.
Company I worked for was cool. They wanted us to clean everything without holding us responsible.
Later we started doing shrink and colourfast test in inconspicuous areas ( excess fabric behind skirtings by back legs of sofa worked well.
Or we tested back of seat cushion were zipper was.

I remember a carpet in Daly City that I shrunk so bad, the edges pulled off the tack strip.
It was a wool with jute backing.

 

[emeraldclean]

I remember a carpet in Daly City that I shrunk so bad, the edges pulled off the tack strip.
It was a wool with jute backing.

Yup had a few with jute backing that split at seams and pulled from tack strip edges. Never 100% wool that I recall. For sure the odd Nylon shag or polypropylene.

 

[bob_rugratz]

I have one customer that I refused to clean her $8k rug right after we cleaned 2 very light colored couches with some sort of cotton blend covers on it. They browned from any water , so we cleaned them as I stated above. But anyways. She got pissy about me not wanting to touch this rug. Told her it was ruined .. They have a 100 pound dog and he had filled it to the point it was sticky. That wasn't why I turned it down. She had rolled it up wet for several weeks, and the dyes were as screwed as I've ever seen. literally all over. it was like 11X13 and thick. Well guess what. Those couches got dirty again. She had to call and say I know we kinda had words but you are the only one I trust cleaning those couches. Can you please come clean them again? Sure LOL

 

[Drew Moore]

The first week I cleaned on my own, I used some Haitian on a striped cotton sofa...
It was a white sofa with bright blue stripes.
I acted like I had cleaned for years and proceeded to clean.
The blue lines immediately blurred and migrated into the white.
It was like watching a horror film play out in real life.
I immediately stopped, switched to a neutral cleaner and proceeded with the cleaning.
I got the clients attention and asked her if she had ever used a spotting agent on the fabric.
When she said yes, I said, "That's why these spots had migrated...because the alkali present in the area created the dye migration".
Not my proudest moment but I had kids to feed and the prospect of losing my job because I ruined a sofa wasn't an option.

Oh my, I would lose my mind. Way to be quick on your feet. Good thing you didn't get a homeowner who called you on it. The important thing is you have graduated from the bait and switch and are now

 

[Drew Moore]

Someone posted on a CC Facebook page they wanted advice on how to clean a $125k rug and said the customer insisted on cleaning it there. Man, without years and years of experience and a rug spa, I would no doubt walk away from that job. Can't even imagine the fiber and dyes used in a rug costing $125k.

 

[jhcinc]

Great videos and nice work !! Didn't Interlink quit selling Buff All ? I think OxyBuff replaced it . Anyone know ?
All the Best, Ed

You can use citric acid powder which is used in water filter industry or pool stores have powder products to lower ph....any product will work to bring down ph of 12ph osr products. You will need a good ph meter to get the mix right and acheive 2-5 ph product

I like detonator from vacaway which has a low ph because acid is used to stabilize it. And Lst encap which is 5ph. Less hassle than mixing powders

 

[Ed Cruz]

I tried to clean a white cotton sofa yesterday. The sofa had been in storage for a while and was very dirty with dust and it also had boxes and items stacked on top of it that rubbed in the dirt.

I used prochem upholstery prespray and set my truckmount pressure to 200 psi with a closed jet wand. As I cleaned, it looked wonderful, I did have to go over some of the spots a few times. As each area dried, it turned a dingy tan color and was uneven. I cleaned it again and it looked perfect...for a while. I switched to an internal jet wand and left the pressure around 200..cleaned new areas and got the same results. I even tried a side of a cushion without prespray and it had the same effect.

I know there were some areas that were so dirty, I did over wet the spot, but there were areas that were not over wet that just didn't look right as it dried. I was cleaning this in a garage of a new home...it was a clean area and no dust in the air.

I told the customer that there would be no charge..it looked way better than when I started...it just wasn't good enough.

Have any of you guys ran into this before? And what has worked or do you suggest I try next time I have this trouble?

Thanks

Steve Andrews has posted somewhere on here how to use an osr product to fix browning on white cotton. The trick when using Sodium perborate products is to use another product to lower ph like buff all and then dry fast with fans or hair drier.

I have good results with encap green from vacaway which is 7ph for cleaning white cotton -viscose-silk and haitian cotton.
With brown stains I have used LST from chemmaxx which is 5ph and 3% peroxide mix and a hair drier.

Low moisture and repeat cleaning on bad areas is better than flushing fabric and leaving fibers wet more than ten minutes. Low moisture can be done with a vacuum system if you mist fiber and use a lot of vac strokes.

Here is white cotton with feces stain about 2 days old.

This sounds like a good way to correct this but I'd go further weather permitting by bringing the pieces outside on a sunny day. It will accelerate the whitening.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

Acid will mitigate the risk of browning but will essentially impede any real 'cleaning' process.
If you clean any white cotton that is very visibly soiled, nothing works better than a cleaner that employs a reducing agent.
The best thing about Haitian cotton cleaner is not only will it blast out the cleaning process but also prevents browning.

 

[jhcinc]

I do not prefer the reducing agents when they smell bad that is why I prefer encap green.

The feces on my cushion was cleaned with encap green boosted with silver and 3% peroxide which work good on crap embedded in the white cotton. The encap green seems to out perform most fabric pre sprays I have tried.

Extra acid is only needed to correct brown.
Low moisture with 5-7 ph encap cleaner and heavy aggitation works great for cleaning and drying fabric in a few minutes to prevent browning.

Although some prefer the oxybuff products I think those are dangerous but effective if you are careful.

 

[Prosteam-sonomacounty]

I do not prefer the reducing agents when they smell bad that is why I prefer encap green.

The feces on my cushion was cleaned with encap green boosted with silver and 3% peroxide which work good on crap embedded in the white cotton. The encap green seems to out perform most fabric pre sprays I have tried.

Extra acid is only needed to correct brown.
Low moisture with 5-7 ph encap cleaner and heavy aggitation works great for cleaning and drying fabric in a few minutes to prevent browning.

Although some prefer the oxybuff products I think those are dangerous but effective if you are careful.

That'll suffice until you run into raw cotton that has tiny seeds in it