Chinese rugs

[harryhides]

I have always been leary about cleaning these rugs.
I have seen coffee stains or the customers spotting attempts create a discoloration or color loss.
Even more likely to see damage from urine contamination like color loss.

So my question for the true Ruggies here are:

When pricing a urine contaminated chinese rug -

1/ Do you guarantee stain removal?

2/ If you find that once the urine has been removed that the rug has been bleached do you simply re-color for no charge ?

3/ Can you make the re-colored rug match the rest of the rug when viewed from all angles ?

4/ If you find that it has previously been spotted with a product containing optical brightening agents which becomes apparent after the cleaning what do you do, charge or say to the customer ?


Thanks

 

[Warren Wallace]

chinese rugs are made with cheap wool and they do not clean as well as a quality
rug.We never guarantee spot removal for many reasons most of which are obvious.

 

[The Great Oz]

I have always been leary about cleaning these rugs.
I have seen coffee stains or the customers spotting attempts create a discoloration or color loss.
Even more likely to see damage from urine contamination like color loss.
If you recognize the bleach treated rug that has urine or tannin stains and don't prequalify with the customer, you may as well just write them a check when they bring it in.

So my question for the true Ruggies here are:

When pricing a urine contaminated chinese rug -

1/ Do you guarantee stain removal? No

2/ If you find that once the urine has been removed that the rug has been bleached do you simply re-color for no charge ? No

3/ Can you make the re-colored rug match the rest of the rug when viewed from all angles ? No. You will notice that the tips of the fibers are lighter than the base, with an elongated tip caused by both the oxidizer used and the multiple scrapings done as part of the process. Pretty hard to recolor.

4/ If you find that it has previously been spotted with a product containing optical brightening agents which becomes apparent after the cleaning what do you do, charge or say to the customer ? Any stain that shows up in or after the cleaning process is discussed with the customer before they see it. We have the option of letting them have the clean, but stained, rug back at no cost to them.

Most of the problems come from both the wool typically being more of a soft garment wool than the tougher wool used for rugs and the bleach treatment given the rug to mute the colors. My griping about damage caused by oxidizers? The typical Chinese rug is an example of that damage done by the factory. Color changes when using acid-side stain removers would be far less likely, and a coffee spill would not become an almost instant permanent stain if not for this treatment.

Most of the time the cure for a small color shift is to wash the entire rug with an acid so everything blends.
Thanks

 

[Ken Snow]

Chinese rugs are a great source of additional revenue for color repair services. As long as they are prequalified and expectations are realistic; badly stained chinese rug can be very profitably color corrected. As Oz said they are crap, but people who love them will spend $ to make them look good again.

Ken
Ps Most chinese rug owners (not counting semi or antique chin rugs) are newbies to rugs. As there taste for rugs mature they go for other, higher quality rug types.

 

[-JB-]

Ps Most Chinese rug owners (not counting semi or antique chin rugs) are newbies to rugs. As there taste for rugs mature they go for other, higher quality rug types.

very true, and GOOD POINT!

 

[harryhides]

Thanks guys, pretty much what I expected though after finally getting one Chinese rug successfully re-colored, I don't plan on trying that again - way too time consuming.

 

[Mikey P]

How about a few photos so us rug hacks know exactly what your talking about.

When I hear Chinese Rugs, I think this..

 

[rhyde]

Honestly, I don’t see Chinese rugs as a bigger issue than any other light colored rug

 

[The Great Oz]

What Mike posted is the traditional Chinese Aubusson that has been popular with old ladies for years. I like the open-backed art deco Chinese of the twenties, and also some of the very heavy Chinese rugs of the fifties. Today China makes 'Sino-Persian' rugs that are better than most of the rugs coming from Iran, as well as all kinds of scary junk.

In their defense, most of the scary junk is contract work ordered by American and European companies.

http://www.antiqueorientalrugs.com/chinese.htm shows some older Chinese rugs; do an image search of Sino-Persian to see others.