Rug Cleaning Woombye,
a Town That Changed Jobs
Twice

Our default is that a rug should be kept, and the reading at your door is where that either gets confirmed or honestly withdrawn. We open the piece out, judge what the foundation can still take, put it into water deep enough to work right through the knots, and dry it flat indoors where the humidity is controlled rather than inherited from the weather outside.

• Keeping it is the default
• What the foundation can take
• Humidity controlled, not inherited

The case for a wash in an old timber house is simply where the problem sits. Moisture and fine soil come up from beneath and lodge in the foundation, which is the one part of a rug that no surface method reaches at all. Water reaches it and carries it out. Dye and backing behaviour are tested before that so the wash suits the age of the piece.

• The problem sits underneath
• No surface method reaches it
• Tested for the age of the piece

Old wool and modern spills are an awkward combination, because the dyes in an older piece are frequently less stable than anything made today and the wrong product will do more harm than the mark did. Everything is tested before it is treated, treatment follows what the test showed rather than a routine, and each mark receives an honest verdict at the end.

• Old dyes are less stable
• Tested before treated
• An honest verdict at the end

The reason these problems persist for years in this sort of house is that damp keeps reactivating them. The deposit itself dried into the backing long ago, well beyond anything applied to the top, and each wet spell brings the smell back as though it were new. Water reaching the base removes it, enzymes break down the compounds, and a controlled dry ends the repetition.

• Damp keeps reactivating it
• Well beyond anything on top
• The repetition ends

In a house of this age the first job is working out whether the smell belongs to the rug or is simply passing through it from under the floor, because those are two different bills. Where the wool is genuinely holding it, the bath takes the substance away and the rinse sends it off the property. No scent goes on afterwards, because perfume on damp wool smells worse.

• Belonging, or passing through
• Two different bills
• Perfume on damp smells worse

Old wool punishes a heavy hand more than new wool does. Press down hard with a cloth and the pile folds across its weave, and a fibre that has been on a floor for forty years will not stand up again afterwards, so the repair reads worse than the original mark. Light hands, a test beforehand, the pile combed straight, and a plain word about whether the bath is needed.

• Old wool punishes a heavy hand
• The repair reads worse
• A plain word about the bath

This is the correct method for matting and machine-made pieces, which take the heat without complaint and are back down the same day. It is the wrong method for hand knotted wool, where the process bears on the knots rather than the soil and nothing looks wrong until several cleans have accumulated. We identify the construction first and explain which route the rug takes.

• Correct here, wrong there
• Back down the same day
• Several cleans before it shows

An old town holds genuinely old rugs and their backings have often had a hard century, so water becomes a question rather than an assumption. We wet a small patch on the reverse and watch it for a minute, which answers it completely. Where a colour moves, the rug takes the dry route in sections instead, because bleeding is one thing nobody can put back.

• A question, not an assumption
• A patch, and a minute
• Nobody can put a bleed back

Old plumbing under old floors fails without warning and often runs for a while before anyone notices, which changes the job. Ring the moment somebody notices, and say which of the three it was, because supply, storm and drain water are three separate problems with three separate answers. Nothing is judged while the rug is soaked, and you see the position before any cost.

• It runs before anyone notices
• Three separate risk levels
• Position before cost

Under-floor damp is the usual cause in this housing stock, and because it starts on the hidden face the growth is well established before anything shows through to the front. Treatment in the bath removes what is alive and the residue supporting it together, then the drying room takes the moisture out of the weave, which is the single condition it cannot do without.

• Under-floor damp is the cause
• Established before it shows
• The single condition it needs

Old wool in a dark cupboard is exactly what they are after, and a house lived in for generations usually has a rolled piece nobody has looked at since the last move. Because the treatment is carried in the wash water it reaches inside the knots, where nothing applied to a surface arrives. The true loss shows only once the rinse takes the loose fibre.

• Old wool in a dark cupboard
• Where surface products never reach
• Shown once the rinse is done

It is a few seconds of delay and we would rather describe it that way than dress it up. A spill holds at the tips of the wool instead of sinking, which gives somebody nearby time to get a towel onto it. With nobody nearby the outcome is unchanged. Handle, sheen and colour are all exactly as they were before the finish went on.

• A few seconds, described plainly
• Nobody nearby, nothing changes
• Exactly as they were before