WHAT WENT WRONG Recovering from disaster


Every cleaner sooner or later is likely to face a seriously expensive claim for damage to an item. Roger Cawood and Richard Neale explain how to avoid the worst with some damage recovery advice


E


xperienced cleaners will know that, if a Biro or lipstick is missed during the pocket check, things can go badly wrong and really spoil your day; while other problems are just waiting around the corner to trip you up, like plastic buttons or beads that partially dissolve in solvent and mark off on items in the load. Then there are machine issues that can result in greying, cage marks or physical damage, not to mention the potential disasters due to colour loss/damage from spotting chemicals. Every cleaner sooner or later, either through an error of judgement, a manufacturing fault or even another cleaner’s mistake, can easily find themself facing a seriously expensive claim.


HIGH RISK: The filthy, greasy condition of this spotting table posed a risk to all garments from contamination with spotting products


Abrasion damage spoils silk coat Fault: The cleaner successfully cleaned this expensive silk coat in the past. On this occasion it was reportedly again cleaned on its own in perc in a net bag, but it came out of the machine with very severe abrasion damage. The care label was symbol. (Note: this garment (being pure silk) was wrongly labelled and should have carried the symbol.) Technical cause: there are two possible explanations for the damage: 1. The load processing conditions were not the same as on previous cleans, which resulted in the coat being exposed to excessive mechanical action during the drycleaning process. This is considered to be most unlikely as, even using a normal programme, cleaning the coat on its own in a net bag is unlikely to have resulted in such severe physical damage.


2. When previously cleaned it was processed by another cleaner who had created the abrasion damage and then masked it using an oiling technique as described earlier; the oil then dissolved in this latest process. This leaves this cleaner ‘holding the baby’ for abrasion damage he is not responsible for. Under these circumstances there is unfortunately no way of determining who was actually responsible. However, it might be possible to recover the garment using the oiling technique described. This is an interesting case which highlights the fact that although many expensive garments may be inadequately or - as in this case - wrongly labelled, a professional cleaner dealing with high value items should recognise this and select an appropriate cleaning programme designed for silk/delicate items.


We suggest you cut out and keep this article for when you need it in the future!


Delicate fabrics


Delicate fabrics are at risk of physical damage throughout production, either from snagging on poorly maintained equipment, inadvertent exposure to spotting chemicals or from a classification error. Damage to silk fabrics is common in drycleaning but perhaps less so in wetcleaning. Silk has a high tensile strength, but is very sensitive to abrasion damage, causing what appears to be localised or random colour loss. The apparent colour loss is due to the ends of broken yarns projecting above the fabric causing differential light reflection from the surface and creating a cloudy ‘bloom’ effect.


Localised abrasion damage often occurs in a domestic environment, e.g. customers’ attempts at stain removal, and friction from car seat belts, shoulder bags and straps.


Inspection tip: damage will be most noticeable if you look horizontally across the fabric.


ABRASION DAMAGE:Typical streaked appearance on this silk coat, caused by abrasion damage


30 LCNi | May 2024


A frequent error in drycleaning is placing a silk item in a net bag, in the mistaken belief that bagging will protect it from damage in a ‘normal’ load of robust


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