More photos from Iran.
At the Zollanvari wash house in Tehran. A closed facility that washes and finishes their proprietary production for export. Rugs come directly from the loom to this facility and leave ready for sale. They torch the backs, do a chlorination wash, shear, fix, stretch, and inventory the goods. It's an impressive operation that currently processes about 50,000 square feet of goods a month, though their capacity is easily twice that.
A really big tumbler. All rugs get dusted prior to washing.
The wash crew - Afghan refugees living in Iran - uses steel bladed scrapers to work the wash formula into the pile.
They use a common laundry powder. Turns out 'barf' means snow in Persian.
An operator runs multiple passes with a machine that agitates the pile surface. The pipe along the back wall is about 8" diameter and has a rinse line about every foot or so.
Very heavy rubber straps spin at high speed 'whacking' the front of the rugs.
After the initial chlorination wash rugs are left in the sun to dry. A few large drying rooms are used in mid winter.