How to Clean a Couch, Including the Upholstery and More

In a lot of techniques, your couch is the coronary heart of your home. Feel about it this way: It’s the put you and your liked ones collect to full jigsaw puzzles, capture up immediately after a extended day’s do the job, and binge Netflix exhibit after Netflix display. Because of this, your couch is also the capture-all location for chip crumbs, popcorn kernels, and occasional wine spills.

Even though vacuuming or wiping down your sofa may perhaps deal with working day-to-day dust and pet hair, you should bust out your fabric steamers and cleaners if you actually want to get rid of set-in stains, spills, and oils from dirty fingers and toes. Each individual six months or so, comply with this step-by-phase tutorial on how to thoroughly clean a sofa — no make any difference what variety of cloth it may perhaps be — by Carolyn Forte, Director of the Superior Housekeeping Institute Cleansing Lab, to make your residing home ready for an additional jam-packed weekend of motion picture-looking at.

How to Cleanse and Sanitize a Couch

Whether you might be hoping to deal with a certain stain on a cushion or want to give your full couch a biannual refresh, give this effortless how-to a consider:

Use a handheld garment steamer or bursts from your steam iron to destroy dust mites. Go more than the total couch, enabling just the steam to contact and penetrate the material. If you don’t have a steamer or iron, skip this step and go straight to vacuuming.
With your vacuum’s upholstery attachment, go over the entire couch: again, arms, skirt and cushions. If the cushions are removable, just take them off and vacuum the material underneath, going as much under the back and arms as your vacuum can attain. With the crevice device, go along the seams, all-around any buttons, and together the trim.
Take a search at your couch’s treatment tag to see what’s safe to use on the material:
- W is the easiest to cleanse and signifies water-dependent cleaners are alright to use.
- W/S implies that either drinking water- or solvent-based mostly cleaners are safe.
- S implies only solvent-based cleaning chemical substances should really be used.
- X signifies do very little a lot more than vacuum or brush the material.
1. For fabrics that can safely be cleaned with water, deal with food stuff and pet stains with an enzyme-made up of components like Bissell Skilled Pet Stain & Odor Remover. In a pinch, combine collectively gentle dish cleaning soap with heat drinking water. Generally exam the cleaner in a hidden area first.
2. If your cushions have detachable addresses, unzip them and location a paper towel between the material and filling to take up cleaner. Use the cleaner to a fabric and blot the stain diligently, doing work from the outside the house in. The moment the stain is taken off, dab the area with one more damp fabric to rinse comprehensively and blot dry. For “S” fabrics, take out stains with a solvent-based mostly solution according to offer directions.
3. Thoroughly clean dingy arms and headrests with a portable extraction cleaner like Bissell’s Very little Environmentally friendly ProHeat Moveable Cleaner. Simply just dispense the cleaner and drinking water mixture by way of the hose, agitate the material with the brush nozzle, and vacuum up the dust into the tank. For solvent-only fabrics, it truly is very best to get in touch with in a specialist for a harmless and comprehensive cleansing.
4. After your sofa is thoroughly clean and dry, get rid of any lingering germs and odors on h2o-risk-free upholstery with a material sanitizing spray like Tide Antibacterial Fabric Spray.