When it comes to giving your house a thorough cleaning, one area you might not give much thought is your curtains. After all, curtains don’t get walked on like the carpets or sat on like the furniture. You generally don’t touch them much, and, aside from a bit of dust, you probably don’t think about them getting dirty. However, the fact is that months of dust and dirt accumulation can leave your curtains looking dull and dirty, and if your curtains have not been cleaned in a long time, the dust can even lead to allergies and respiratory problems. If you have pets, the need for curtain cleaning in DC is even greater.
A large portion of curtain cleaning in DC is done with dry cleaning. Though you have probably been taking your suits and fine clothes to a dry cleaner for years, you are probably unsure about how the process works. Contrary to the way it sounds, dry cleaning actually uses a liquid solvent, though it does not use water. The process was discovered by accident in 1855, when a dye-works owner named Jean Baptiste Jolly noticed that his table cloth looked much cleaner after his made spilled kerosene on it. Baptiste then opened a cleaning business inside his dye works and called his services “dry cleaning.” Though the process has been around for over 150 years, it has only really been available in the US for the past 75. After World War II, perchlorethylene, or perc, became the primary cleaning agent because it is safe, efficient, fast, and doesn’t require huge pieces of equipment.
Dry cleaning always follows the same basic process. First the curtains are tagged, meaning that they are given a tag with an identification number. This number corresponds to an entry in the computer, which designates who the curtains belong to, when they were brought in, and any special cleaning instructions. The dry cleaners will then pre-treat any stains, much as you would do at home before putting in a load of laundry. The curtains are then placed in a large dry cleaning machine, which can hold up to 100 pounds of fabric. The curtains are stored in a perforated basket, where they are soaked in a continuous stream of solvent and pounded against baffles in the cylinder. The used solvent is sent through a filter and reused for maximum effect. The machine then quickly spins the curtains to rid them of excess solvent, and a warm stream of air dries the fabric. The distilled solvent is stored back in the tank.
For the most effective curtain cleaning in DC, the technician will then examine the curtains after they come out of the dry cleaning machine and remove any remaining stains using water, air, steam, or a vacuum. Finally, curtains are steamed, pressed, and reshaped to insure that your newly cleaned curtains look good as new when they are hung back up in your home.
ALG Drapery Cleaning and Installation is one of the best and most experienced providers of curtain cleaning in DC, with over twenty years of experience in the industry.
