Case Studies - Inspection

Care counters complaints

The most successful cleaners spend time at the counter examining every item, foreseeing problems and giving realistic expectations to avoid complaints. There is nothing more frustrating than to have to explain to an angry customer that the fault on the item was there when it was handed in and you just didn’t notice it.

The only time when this might be justified is when a fault only becomes really visible after cleaning.

Cotton crease

Drycleaning does not always remove wear creasing. The most likely garments to be affected are cotton jackets (at the elbow) and cotton trousers (at the back of the knee). This is because cotton displays wear abrasion that affects the dyes and this can be made worse by a trace of perspiration.

The basic blame lies with the manufacturer (for not using better dyes) and with the wearer. All textiles wear out eventually and this is the way this type of garment will start to fail.

PVC cracks up

Any coated fabric deserves a close look because most PVC coatings cannot be drycleaned (whatever the label might say). Even plasticised polyurethane has a failure rate of around one in four (seen here).

Initial damage occurs on a worn garment because normal wear will flex the coated areas so that tiny, almost invisible, cracks open up in the plastic surface.

The drycleaning solvent penetrates these and lifts the coating; the rest of the damage occurs through the normal mechanical action, especially during the tumble dry stage of the process.

Abrasion

Changes to cotton dye recipes to avoid carcinogenic (cancer-causing intermediaries) resulted for a time in many cotton garments being very sensitive to wear abrasion.

They do not look too bad before cleaning but the effect of wear weakens the dye-to-fibre bonds so that the colour comes away in normal drycleaning to create unsightly white edges.

All the cleaner can do is point out to the customer that drycleaning will not improve worn edges and they also could fade much more.

Frayed seams work loose

If stitching is coming undone , even over just a few millimetres, it is fair to expect that more will work loose during drycleaning. This should not be ignored or you will end up with a repair for which you are unlikely to get paid.

Offer the customer a repair at reception and if this is declined, mark “do not repair” on the ticket. You will have behaved professionally and you now have some evidence of pre-existing damage which is much better than a simple verbal warning.

Holes are often disguised

Moth holes are often disguised by debris which the untidy grubs create and leave behind. They are sometimes difficult to see until drycleaning has flushed everything away.

Most other types of tears and holes can be seen readily at the counter. If these are not noted by the cleaner and pointed out to the customer, it is very difficult for the cleaner to successfully deny liability later on when the inevitable complaint comes. Cleaners should always note pre-existing damage on the ticket and insist on the ticket being produced before entertaining any claim. The instructions “do not repair hole” or “do not stitch hem” are the best way of doing this.

Accepting a risk with yarns

Chenille fabrics are woven from yarns which look a bit like a pipe cleaner except they come apart even more easily.

In addition the chenille yarn is difficult to keep within the fabric structure, so that loops of yarn develop during drycleaning and cannot then be returned to their correct position during finishing.

Chenille fabrics should only be accepted if the owner is prepared to authorise the risk of the care label being wrong. They should be processed in a net bag in which the folded garment is quite a tight fit, to prevent disturbance during processing and so give a good chance of successful cleaning.