 Excerpt
from Cleaning & Maintenance Distribution Online
Dye bleed can make
rug cleaning customers see red
By Robert Preuss, news editor
Truckmount-equipped cleaning pros often
perform Oriental rug cleaning on site after dye fastness tests and
taking precautions.
Immersion
cleaning for fine oriental rugs, especially Afghani tribal rugs with
bold reds — can be problematic, rug experts told CM e-News Daily/Cleanfax
Online.
Both dye types and methods make them bleeders
not cleanable by conventional methods, they said.
"Rug makers will use as dyes whatever is
available to them," said David Levine, proprietor, David Levine
Oriental Rugs, Concord, NH.
Levine said some rugs from Iran, Afghanistan,
Turkmenistan, etc., may behave similar to the way the old aniline
dye types did (and still do, as 19th century rugs are washed) —
bleeding profusely.
Dye types
Anilines were the first synthetic dyes (1856),
replacing natural vegetable and insect dyes in parts of the
rug-weaving world. They were actually derived from coal tar and
acid. Laws (and harsh penalties) restricted their use in Persia
before the 20th century.
Chrome dyes, containing potassium bicarbonate,
largely replaced aniline dyes in the 1940s. They are much gentler on
wool and more colorfast. In some places, though, especially India,
some people are calling for a wholesale return to plant/insect dyes
for environmental reasons.
"When you think about it, any dye can be
toxic," noted Levine. He did say, though, that natural dyes are the
most colorfast of all.
It is possible, said Phil Auserehl, owner,
Castle
Cleaning and Rug Co., Berthoud, CO, that Afghani weavers are
combining synthetic and natural dyes.
What makes a bleeder?
Certain dye techniques make for bleeding rugs:
Failure (even purposeful/cultural, or due to the lack of
availability of water) to rinse thoroughly after drying; poor
mordants (reagents like alum, tin, copper, tannic acid, etc., for
fixing coloring matter in textiles, leather).
Other potential dye problems facing carpet
cleaners tackling Oriental rugs:
Unwashable?
"The best advice for cleaners is to avoid
them," Levine said of the bleeders emerging from Afghanistan,
Turkmenistan and Iran.
"People can buy these rugs and enjoy them for
many years, but they should understand that they'll never be able to
wash them."
Auserehl, with training partner Ron Toney, is
showing carpet cleaners how to wash those "unwashable" rugs without
colors running.
Jacuzzi for rugs
CM/Cleanfax magazine first described a
compressed air/wash cleaning system in February 2001 and
Michigan-based carpet cleaning industry veteran Nathan Koets has
been demonstrating the system.
The system is designed to turn a building —
even a garage with plumbing, basically — into an Oriental rug
cleaning center.
The process utilizes compressed air to blast
dirt out of the rug before wetting and to force out soiled water
during immersion. That, Auserehl told CM/Cleanfax, is one
reason the system permits washing of even heavy red dye-bleeding
rugs.
 | To be useful, the vessel must first be
empty. Auserehlian system cleaners used compressed air not only to
blow out dirt before immersion — but also to blow out a great deal
of dye crocking, the excess dye that has not been bound to the
fiber.
Furthermore, Auserehl said that filling the
vessel — using dye bleed control, pre-spraying a "blocking" agent
— prevents dye loosened in immersion from settling. The red dye
cannot penetrate this barrier to turn a white area pink. The white
yarn is filled with a blocking agent and there is nowhere for the
loose dye to go.
"Don't stop the bleeding," Auserehl said.
"Bleed it until it's done." |
Some rug plant cleaners take just the opposite
approach. They use a commercially supplied mordant to fix loose dyes
in place. However, over-saturation means there's no available fiber
for the excess dye to attach itself too, mordant or not.
It's much the same as when you use too much
soap in your carpet cleaning solution: You've got a strong solvent,
but now there's nowhere for the soil to go, because you've used up
the available water.
Using pneumatics (compressed air) in
submersion also moves loose dye away from the rug during the wash.
Both functions are necessary, Auserehl said.
First thing in, last thing out
Auserehl uses the analogy of the movie
theater. The lone guy who sits in the first row is going to be out
of the theater last — all things proceeding in order.
It's that way with soiling.
| If urine, for example, went into the rug
first, then you add soap, rinse, etc., the urine will still be the
last out
|
| Everything else, especially the soap or
shampoo, has gone on top of the urine
That's why Auserehl uses clear water —
rinse, rinse, rinse, with the aid of pneumatics — to carry away
the soiling. |
There are some idiosyncrasies to Auserehl's
drying system as well; you could say he has turned in-plant rug
cleaning upside down.
That just describes the basics. A long list of
hand tasks is involved. Make no mistake, carpet cleaners using
either this system or the Moore system must be prepared to offer a
high level of service.
Cleaning a fine Oriental rug — every three to
five years, one rug merchant recommends, or more often depending on
traffic and the presence of pets, etc. — is a premium service.
Repairs offer additional opportunities.
Why clean?
Cleaning reduces wear. The rug nap —
especially where traffic is moderate to heavy — becomes matted down
over time. That means fiber is turned sideways and "glued" down by
soil. The exposed area of fiber (the side of the fiber compared to
the top) is thus subject to additional wear from traffic. That's why
cleaning and grooming of Oriental rugs reduces wear.
Improving appearance and indoor air quality
are more obvious reasons.
As a fiber, wool, Levine pointed out, is
tough. The natural "spring-like" form of the fibers and their
natural lanolin coating, like built-in rug protection, enable rugs
to resist damage and stains.
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