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Upholstery cleaning is 50% art and 50% technical.   Most carpets can be cleaned the same way but that’s not true for cleaning upholstery.   There are a variety of fabrics and patterns each with their own vulnerabilities.  The technical comes from knowing what kind of fabric and what chemicals, process and technique is best for that fabric.

Manufacturers often don’t take into consideration the cleaning and maintenance of the furniture when they design it.  Most people shop for style and often put less emphasis on durability and maintenance, unless, of course, they have a bevy of young boys running around.

As a rule of thumb, the more expensive a piece of furniture is the more difficult it is to clean as more exotic fabrics tend to be used.  This is not always the case, but if you have a significant investment in your upholstered furniture, it is wise to seek out experienced and highly trained specialists to clean it.

Even they can be surprised.  We’ve encountered a familiar colorfast cotton material that had a different colored backing that bled through when cleaned and stained the surface.   This is unusual but has happened.   In this case we had to reupholster the seat cushions to restore the sofa.

The art comes from visualizing the end result of the cleaning.  There’s an overall look to the finished product that transcends the technical aspects of the cleaning.  You can actually get something too clean.  Material, like anything else, tends to oxidize.  Also, some areas wear differently than other areas causing the light to refract differently giving it a different look.  A skilled technician will take these factors into consideration when cleaning the upholstery.   His goal is not only cleaning it but giving it a pleasing appearance.  This sometimes means not overworking a spot or just lightly touching upon the front and sides so they look similar to the more worn and soiled areas.  An inexperienced cleaner can actually make a sofa, though very clean, look worse after cleaning it.

There have been occasions where, upon inspection, we’ve recommended just vacuuming the sofa rather than cleaning it.  In some cases the customer has insisted we clean the furniture only to later complain the sofa looked worse.  The irony is there’s no remedy as this problem was cleaning it, and more cleaning won’t help.

As with anything, you need to match the solution to the problem.  You wouldn’t take a Bentley to a Ford mechanic and, conversely, you wouldn’t want to pay a Bentley mechanic to work on a Ford.  This is not to say that skilled upholstery cleaners are a lot more expensive than less skilled ones.  But if you value your upholstery, I would suggest skipping unrealistically low priced services.  You’re not going to get a prime aged filet at a restaurant for $6.95 no matter what the advertisement or the menu says.  It’s just not doable.  Something’s amiss.   The old adage, “You get what you pay for” is not infallibly true.  There are bargains, and some things are overpriced.  But it’s a place to start from when making a purchasing decision.

Hope this helps!

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Why Choose Quality Carpet Cleaning?

Our organizational structure allows us to deliver the same or better quality of service as any of the major companies out there for a much lower cost. We invite you to compare.

There’s no secret to doing what we do. There are industry and manufacturers’ standards. There is certified training. There are apprenticeships. The best equipment and cleaning solutions are available to anyone. If you strip away all their attempts to distinguish themselves, you will find that all the top companies essentially clean how Quality Carpet Cleaning does because it’s what works best. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Quality Carpet Cleaning has thousands of independent reviews on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, Google, the BBB and various other review sites. These are not reviews we collect on our site where we can filter and control them. Thus, though we are rated highly everywhere, not all of our reviews are great. However, you will see that when a problem does pop up, we go out of our way to make things right with the customer.

If you are unhappy for any reason, we will gladly come out and re-clean any area you are not happy with.

We at Quality Carpet Cleaning appreciate how important your time is and give it the highest priority. We schedule ideally 3, but no more than 4, jobs per day for each technician where other companies schedule up to 6. In this way our technicians have plenty of time between jobs and don’t have to rush through a job to get to the next.

In the real world, situations arise where someone needs service right away. As a result, we keep our schedule flexible enough where we can do a reasonable number of same-day jobs. Obviously, the earlier you contact us the higher the likelihood we can accommodate you.

Our staff cares about our customers because we care about them. We look for people who like helping others and then train them on how to. We have an unofficial policy: If we have to supervise you, you don’t belong here. Our people know and like their jobs and it comes through when you talk to them.

All our products are safe for kids & pets. What most people don’t know is that California regulations are so strict that many cleaning products sold in other states are not allowed to be sold here. Some standards even go beyond “green”. That said, we also carry a line of green carpet cleaning products for hyper-sensitive people.

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