Curtains

A curtain service should be highly profitable but it can lead to problems that can end in expensive claims and even in court.

It is a myth that British Standards allow drycleaners to shrink a curtain by up to 3%, The standard allows the curtain maker and the fabric maker a 3% tolerance in cleaning to allow for the natural relaxation of a cotton curtain. Cotton curtaining is normally finished under tension and it is difficult to avoid setting a slight stretch into the cloth. This set is released in the first few cleans, probably caused by the lubricating effect of the solvent at molecular level.

If the maker sets a 4% or 5% relaxation potential into the fabric, then it will shrink by this amount and most of it will be released on the first cleaning. The drycleaner can neither predict nor avoid this and the fact that the curtain may shrink by more than 3% is the maker’s responsibility, not the drycleaner’s.

Curtains with acrylic or modacrylic fibres can suffer thermal shrinkage if the cleaner does not lower the drying temperature correctly (to 50C for acrylic and 40C for modacrylic). In this case the cleaner is responsible. Normally, an acrylic or modacrylic will only relax by around 2% but thermal shrinkage can increase the total to 7%. The cleaner would be responsible for the extra 5%.

The cleaner is responsible if silk or viscose curtains shrink because of failure to control the moisture in the drycleaning machine. The cleaner’s craft skills should include pre-drying curtains before cleaning to prevent cracking and greying.

Moisture will also cause felting shrinkage of thermal interlinings with wool fibres.

Curtain’s thermal lining degrades

Fault: This grubby curtain cleaned perfectly in perc but the owner noticed a partial loss of the thermal insulation provided by the outer fabric’s plastic back-coating. The areas of loss seemed to match the parts of the window most exposed to light.

Cause: When new, the thermal back-coating would probably pass a drycleanability test in perc with flying colours but prolonged exposure to light, particularly UV light, seriously degrades the coating. This then quickly breaks up when the curtain is cleaned in perc so the result here is inevitable.

Responsibility: The curtain maker is to blame. When testing coatings of this type for drycleanability it is essential to use a sample that has been at the window for at least twelve months and preferably two years.

Puzzling brown marks

Fault: These curtains were cleaned in perc and steam finished but then returned because of strange brown marks.

Cause: The marks are not related to cleaning or finishing. Judging by the charred fibres they are burn marks. The pattern is characteristic of entrapment in certain types of polythene heat-sealing machine.

Responsibility: This is likely to lie with the cleaner if the business has a machine that leaves marks like this when a piece of cotton gets trapped.

Rectification: Examination under UV light shows where the cleaner tried unsuccessfully to remove the marks. The damage is irreversible.

Cracking makes shrinkage worse

Fault: When this silk curtain was drycleaned in perc the resultant shrinkage was unacceptable and the owner also complained of tight creases in the fabric.

Cause: Poor moisture control during cleaning has not only caused the tight creasing but also led to additional shrinkage.

Responsibility: The curtain maker is responsible for the relaxation shrinkage and the cleaner is responsible for the cracked silk and the moisture shrinkage. Unfortunately there is no reliable method of calculating the amount of each type of shrinkage.

Rectification: It is worth trying to set the curtains to length using a vertical curtain finishing machine. If the cleaner does not have one there are sub-contractors that will do this.

Ripples in the interlining structure

Fault: These curtains, which have stiffened headers, were drycleaned in perc but the customer returned them and complained that rippling could now be seen in the headers.

Cause: The rippling and creasing results from the differing amounts of shrinkage to the header components and from the partial delamination of the buckram used for stiffening.

This laminate has not been designed for machine drycleaning in perc, even though perc is the preferred solvent for cleaning curtains because of its high cleaning power.

Responsibility: The curtain maker is mostly responsible. The cleaner has not made any mistakes even though they should certainly have asked the owner to authorise the delamination risk if the curtains were not labelled for perc cleaning.

Rectification: The curtain could be disassembled and re-made with fresh buckram but the customer may not wish to commission this expensive and time consuming repair.

Explaining the shrinkage problem

Fault: The cleaner needed to explain to the customer why these high quality cotton curtains shrank and to advise whether a claim on the maker for using sub-standard fabric would be justified.

Cause: Cotton curtains do not shrink in drycleaning through cleaner negligence. These curtains have shrunk because the cloth was made with a slight stretch set in and all the cleaner has done is to remove this. To calculate the shrinkage, first examine the corner structure, take and record the measurement between the corner of the lining and the curtain hem. Note by how much the lining hangs below the outer in the centre of the curtain. Then measure the curtain’s overall length and assume the lining has shrunk in cleaning by only 1% (typical for a cotton lining). Calculate this 1% by dividing the overall length by 100. Add the three measurements together to get a good estimate of the total overall shrinkage in cleaning. If this is over 3%, a claim against the curtin maker could well be justified.

Responsibility: The curtain maker and ultimately the fabric producer are responsible for the relaxation potential of cotton curtaining. Neither the owner nor the cleaner can predict this.

Rectification: Re-finishing the curtains on a vertical curtain finishing machine will normally recover much of the relaxation.