When it comes to your Oriental rug, you have made an investment that you want to last, and the best way to do that is to have your rug cleaned by professionals who have been doing this for decades. At Fred Remmers Rug Cleaners, we have been serving clients just like you for more than 139 years with the same level of expertise and dedication to our craft that has made us a name across the country. Our Memphis handwashing services offer the finest, most detailed Oriental rug cleaning in the industry, so contact us to get your free estimate today.

We specialize in cleaning Persian Rugs, Chinese Rugs, Indian Rugs, Turkish Rugs, Afgan Rugs, Nepal Rugs, and Machine-Made Rugs. Every rug is inspected before cleaning to determine what cleaning steps and methods are needed. Rug Cleaning is a multi-step process and every step is important to ensure quality Rug Wash.

Pre-Cleaning Evaluation

We take the greatest care when handling any Oriental rug, and will always perform a complete assessment of the piece before we touch it. This ensures that your rug receives only the best treatment for its unique condition, color, style, material, and age. During this step our rug repair staff will give estimates on rug repairs if needed, such as rug binding repair, rug fringe repair, rug reweaving, rug color run removal or any other type of rug repair. If our experts determine that a hand wash is right for your rug, then we’ll start with dusting and beating.

Dusting and Beating

The majority of the wear and tear found in Oriental rugs (other than stains and spots) is caused by a buildup of dust and debris. Our dusting and beating process gently removes all of the dry dust and dirt lodged in between the fibers of your rug, so the fibers can breathe without compromising their delicate weave. We take special care with antique or compromised rugs, placing the rug between two pieces of screen to ensure the best results while maintaining the rug’s structural integrity. During this step of our rug cleaning process we want to make sure that all the dirt and grime in the base of the rug is removed. This is why it is so important to have rugs cleaned by a professional rug cleaner.

Stability Test

After the dusting, we perform a 24-hour color stability test to ensure that the colors won’t run. If a rug fails this test, we take extra precautions to ensure that there is no color transfer throughout the washing process. In addition, we assess and treat unstable ends and damaged areas with extra care before the washing process, to ensure we have the best cleaning technique for the rug. This step is important because removing color run in a rug can be a long and extensive process. Our rug cleaning staff is trained in detecting rugs that are prone to bleeding colors.

Immersion

After we have stabilized any fragile areas, we fully immerse the rug in a tub with a natural soap specifically formulated to be gentle yet effective and to protect the natural oils and lanolin from the wool fibers in the rug. For most cases, the rug is then agitated on both sides to make sure the solution reaches every fiber. In the case of antique rugs or those that require special attention, we hand-brush the rugs instead of agitate them.

In this immersion tub, we constantly circulate the water to ensure that the rug is not sitting in dirty, stagnant water. This way, we are able to help stuck in dirt and set stains dissolve away from the fibers deep within the rug. Our Rug Wash Tub is constantly under the supervision of our rug cleaning staff to ensure the best quality rug wash possible. 

Rinsing

Our rinsing process is thorough and includes flushing all of the contaminants, leftover soap, and dirty water out of the rug using a gentle, massaging flushing tool. This step may be repeated several times to ensure the rug is sparkling clean.With some area rugs during our rug cleaning process we use a rug centrifuge that helps removing any remaining soil in the rug. 

Drying

After the rug is completely rinsed and clean, it is laid out on a screen to air dry in a climate controlled, dehumidified area to improve and expedite the drying process.

Fringe Cleaning

The fringe is addressed while the rug is laying out to dry. We never use chlorine bleach on the fringe, as it causes the fibers to deteriorate and warp over time. Instead, we use a potassium bisulfate-based solution, which is gentle on and effective on cotton. While cotton fringe will gray over time, this doesn’t mean it is dirty, it simply is what happens to the material as it ages.

Final Details

We’re not done with your rug until our experts and you are completely satisfied with it. Because of this, we take extra time during the final detailing step to:

Dust again with a dry air tool to remove any stray lint or dust that might have been missed the first time around.
Inspect the rug thoroughly.
Groom the rug by brushing and vacuuming it.