Delivery Laundry Service Tips: How does dry cleaning actually work?

What is dry cleaning laundry service? And, how does it work? Here are some notes from The Folde laundry and dry cleaning delivery service in Austin & Houston, TX.

Dry cleaning is a cleaning process that involves the use of a chemical solvent with water to clean clothing, textiles and general house equipment. From the word “dry cleaning” the process is contrary to its word since the process is not as dry as the word states.

Tetrachloroethylene commonly referred to as “perc” is the most used solvent by most companies during the cleaning process.

Trichloroethane and also petroleum spirits (more widely used due to less harmful effects than Perc – including at The Folde!) are some of the other solvents that are always used in the cleaning process. The cleaning process employed depends on the type of fibers in place, most natural fibers are cleaned using water but on some other occasions some synthetics tend to react poorly with water hence are cleaned using the dry-cleaning agents.

During the dry cleaning process, there are enclosed machines that are used in the process. There are two machines that are employed during the dry cleaning process, one machine is used for cleaning purposes while the other machine is used to strictly ensure no solvent fumes are expelled to the atmosphere and instead the solvent is recovered during the drying process, condensed and distilled so that it can be recycled and used in cleaning further loads.

Process of dry cleaning

The dry cleaning process is done using a dry cleaners machine. A dry cleaning machine is simply a two-way machine, i.e. a domestic washing machine and also a clothes dryer.
During the cleaning process the garments or the material in place are placed in the extraction chamber, commonly referred to as “basket”.

Here the chamber is made up of shell that holds solvent used as dry cleaning agents. The garments are rotated in the chamber while agitating in the solvent in place. The whole process in this extraction chamber is referred to as the wash cycle.

The given solvent after a series of rotation is removed and sent to a distillation chamber which entails a boiler and a condenser. The condensed solvent is then moved to the separator unit which is used to separate any water from the solvent then fed into the tank.

The garments are also examined to ensure no foreign objects are carried along with the garments. Stains on the garments are removed by steam jets or, in some cases, they are soaked in special stain-removing agents.

The cleaning process takes a maximum of 10-12 minutes before the wash cycle is done, after the wash cycle the garments are rinsed and thereafter go through the drying cycle to complete the whole dry-cleaning process.

The modern dry cleaning process is a fast way of cleaning your clothing, textiles or any other material. And, it’s even faster if you have it picked up and delivered straight to your door.