Avoid These Mistakes When Taking Care Of Your Sofa
It is an integral part of the room. Its size, plus the fact that everyone in the room wants to use it, makes the sofa one of the imposing sets of furniture. Its state has a huge impact on the rest of the space. From living room to bedrooms, to the sofas that are out in the lounges and reception areas of your business premises, proper care is needed for them to remain in their optimal state. They are expensive, and it is painful to watch a magnificent piece of furniture getting ruined due to neglect. During the routine care and maintenance, there are common mistakes that have been witnessed, which can damage the sofa. These include:
- Working with just any cleaning product
Th wrong chemicals will quickly ruin your elegant sofa. The different materials that the units are made with, from the natural fabric sofa, those with synthetic fabrics, all through to the various leather units, each have their different cleaning requirements. The cleaning solutions that work on other sections of the building, like removing stains from countertops or scrubbing gunk off the walls- are not automatically suited for being used to clean the sofa. From the tough stain-removers to the popular DIY formulations like ammonia and vinegar that are prepared for other areas, they can end up damaging the texture of the sofa if they are incompatible with its fabric. Issues like discolouration are common, and corrosion of the fibres is also witnessed, which weakens the structural integrity of the upholstery. Manufacturer instructions come with labels like water only, solvent only, water/solvent, and others prohibit the use of either for cleaning the sofa, requiring specialized agents that have been developed for that particular material.
- Neglecting spills
The upholstery readily soaks up the liquid spills that occur on it. The longer that you allow them to remain unattended to, the deeper the stain will get, and the more difficult it will be to remove. Both water-based and oil-based stains should be attended to as soon as possible, in order to limit the effect, and increase the chances of them being completely removed from the sofa.
- Ignoring the manufacturer’s instructions
They are there for a reason. Instructions of how the sofa should be cared for from the manufacturer’s themselves, are not to be trifled with. These provide direction on how to properly handle the sofa, to avoid damages to the unit. To ensure that the cleaning is done safely, manufacturers are also increasingly stipulating that the buyers of their products should have the sofas cleaned by professionals within a specified duration, and put this as one of the terms in their warranty for the item.
- Failing to perform a spot test
This is especially if you’re working with a new cleaning product that you haven’t used on the sofa before. Testing it out on a small inconspicuous area of the sofa will enable you to assess how it reacts with the material before you go ahead and use it on the rest of the unit.
- Using too much water
This goes back to what is intended for your particular sofa. This causes different problems. First, too much water means that there will be a prolonged drying time to follow. The longer that the sofa takes to dry, the more likely that mould and mildew will develop on it. You don’t want a fungal infestation in your unit- especially since it will be difficult to remove, cause staining, and put the heath of anyone who uses the sofa at risk. There are also fabrics where the water itself causes wrinkling, in which case low-moisture methods are required for the task. Fabric shrinkage is also a concern, hence the emphasis on using professional sofa cleaning services where the appropriate measures will be put in place to work on your set.
- Hiring cheap services
You get what you pay for. Sure, no one would want to go bankrupt paying for the sofa cleaning services. Focus shifts to ensuring that you get value for the amount that you spend. Going for the cheap services purely because of the price exposes you to lots of risk. These range from low quality products being used that don’t deliver the desired quality of results, working with inexperienced personnel who apply the wrong products or techniques for the process- which ends up ruining your sofa, services that are not insured- meaning that you won’t have recourse should there be damages and liabilities to deal with, all through to lacking guarantees for the services being offered. There are also those cases of hidden costs that are added to your bill down the road, and bait-and-switch tactics, where you’re reeled in with the attractive price tag, only for things to be changed and you end up paying more for it These are not situations that you want to go through.
Working with a professional company that gives you a detailed quotation for the services being rendered, with a complete breakdown of what exactly is being paid for, will enable you to make an informed decision. When selecting the company that will work on the sofas in your residential or commercial premises, there are different aspects for you to consider. These include the track record of the company- how long it has been in operation and the client reviews that have been left about it on the various social media platforms and even business directories that provide the feature; ensuring that the company is licensed and insured; asking about the training and certification of the crew; plus how the customer service is provided, to your experience throughout the process- from when you were calling in to make an enquiry, to the site visit that was conducted to assess the scope of the work to be conducted. What’s more, you want to be comfortable with the cleaning crew that will be sent to your premises. From homes to business establishments, you want to trust the personnel that will be operating on your furnishings, and moving around the building. Getting assurance on the trustworthiness and reliability of the crew is key, and will give you peace of mind as they go about their task.
