What you Didn't Know About Candles Can Cost You Big Time

January 15th, 2011

Did you know that candle soot can cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your home? According to insurance companies, damage from soot has become an epidemic.

You probably know that a flickering candle flame results in many times more soot than a steadily burning flame.

Did you know that a smoldering wick can result in many times more soot than a flickering candle flame?

Always clip off the burning wick in order to put out the candle. When lighting a candle, make sure the wick is less than 1/4 inch long. Trim the wick after a couple of hours.

And, while your at it, avoid scented or heavily scented candles. They produce far more soot than non scented candles.

Look for low soot producing candles. They can produce one percent of the soot of non low soot producing candles.

Lead wicks have been illegal for over a decade. You can check an old candle by upbraiding the wick and checking for a metal strand. If the metal can leave a mark on a piece of paper, it’s lead.

And avoid incense or make sure you have good ventilation.

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How to Remove Wax Stains from Upholstery

January 15th, 2011

Around this time of the year, we get calls from customers who ask what can be done about accidental wax drippings on upholstery. A quick Google search will recommend blotting up the stain by ironing brown paper over the stain. Please don’t do this.

The problem is that as the wax is melted and partially blotted up, a small amount of wax inevitably gets pushed deeper into the fibers of the material. The stain is less apparent but still obvious. Furthermore, heat, even on the low setting, can easily damage some fabrics. Also, dyes contained in candles can be released into the fabric.

The correct way to safely and more effectively remove the wax stain is to use specially formulated spotting chemicals and dry cleaning. This spotting and dry cleaning approach, of course, will be less effective if the iron and paper method has already been tried since the wax is now deeper into the upholstery fabric fibers.

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Three of the Ten Best New Year’s Resolutions

January 4th, 2011

1. Dry clean your prized draperies. I’m not kidding. Your draperies are dirty. You may not realize it because you live with them every day. You don’t see how tired looking they have become or how they have lost their luster and vibrancy. Do you entertain? Believe me when I tell you that your guests are judging you by your draperies. A professional cleaning will restore your window treatments and make those colors really pop. Window treatment should be cleaned annually. This includes shades.

2. Dry clean your upholstery. Your upholstery collects the same airborne contaminants, which attack your draperies. Not to mention that they are sat on and more easily soiled. Like your draperies, dry cleaning will make your beloved upholstery smell better and look brighter. The effect is just compelling. You may even think you walked into the wrong home. Upholstery should be professionally cleaned followed by fabric protection application annually.

3. Stop sleeping with the enemy and clean your mattresses. Mattresses contain hundreds of thousands of microscopic, asthma causing, varmints (dust mites), which live off of the dead skin cells you shed while sleeping. These dust mites are harmful to your health. The best, proven method is to kill these offenders by soaking the mattresses with heated, industrial strength hydrogen peroxide and immediately extracting (vacuuming) the hydrogen peroxide containing the dead dust mites out of your mattresses. After your mattresses have dried, your family will have their best night of sleep in years, I promise. Clean those mattresses twice per year and you won’t miss a beat.

4-10. Once you have taken care of Resolutions 1 through 3, all of your other new year’s wishes should come true.

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Resolve to Improve Your Personal Living Environment

January 4th, 2011

The great thing about the New Year is that one can resolve to make positive changes in one’s life without having to have a reason other than it is simply a new year. Why should I change something now? Because it a new year!

What is the most common New Years resolution? Eat better? Exercise more? Get along with significant other? Organize? Quit smoking? Stop texting so much? Watch less TV? Everyone who has tried to accomplish these goals knows how hard it is to change learned behavior. Just ask any psychologist.

How about a more realistic goal? How about improving your personal living environment? What is a personal living environment? It could be your home, your office, your personal jet or your yacht. It’s where you spend much of your time.

By improving your personal living environment, you improve your life. For example, just rearranging the furniture can lift one’s spirits. Cleaning can be therapeutic and even empowering. In fact, dare I say, cleaning or having cleaning done for you can be so uplifting that those other seemingly impossible goals for the New Year don’t seem so far out of reach after all.

So, let’s get down to basics. Improve your living environment and realize those dreams of weight loss, an upward career move and true romance for the New Year. Happy New Year!

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