Sofa, mattress & upholstery cleaning in Plymouth

Why sofas need more than a vacuum

A three-seater sofa in daily use collects an astonishing amount: skin cells, hair, body oils from arms and headrests, food crumbs in the crevices, and the dust that settles on everything in a home. The oils are the real problem, because they darken the fabric gradually and evenly, which is why a sofa can look "just old" rather than dirty, until a cleaned cushion sits next to an uncleaned one.

We clean upholstery with a low-moisture extraction tool , not the high-flow wand used on carpets. The method is the same in principle (pre-treat, agitate gently, extract) but with far tighter moisture control, because foam and fillings must not get soaked. Done properly, a fabric sofa is dry in four to six hours.

Everything starts with a fibre test on a hidden area. Fabric type decides the product, the temperature and the pressure, and some fabrics should not be wet-cleaned at all. If yours is one of them we will tell you before we unload the machine.

Our upholstery cleaning process

• Fibre and colourfastness test on a hidden area
• Check of the manufacturer's cleaning code if present
• Thorough vacuum including crevices and under cushions
• Pet hair lifted with a rubber tool where needed
• Pre-treatment matched to the fabric type
• Gentle agitation to release soil from the weave
• Low-moisture extraction, seam by seam
• Arms, headrests and cushion edges detailed
• Removable cushion covers cleaned both sides
• Spot treatment for food, drink and ink marks
• Deodorising treatment on request
• Mattresses cleaned, deodorised and dust-mite treated
• Air movers used to speed up drying
• Fabric protector applied on request

Mattress cleaning and allergies

A mattress collects roughly a third of a litre of moisture from you every night, plus skin cells, which is exactly what dust mites feed on. For anyone in the house with asthma, eczema or a dust allergy, cleaning the mattress is often the single most useful thing you can do, more so than cleaning the carpet.

We vacuum with a HEPA-filtered machine, extract the surface with a low-moisture tool, treat for dust mites and deodorise. Mattresses are dry in a few hours with air movement. Our honest advice afterwards is to use a washable mattress protector and wash it monthly, because that does more for the next two years than an annual clean does.

Leather, velvet and the fabrics to be careful with

Leather is not extraction-cleaned. It is cleaned and conditioned by hand with pH-correct products, and the conditioning matters as much as the cleaning because dry leather cracks. Aniline and nubuck finishes are far more absorbent than pigmented leather and need a lighter touch.

Among fabrics, the ones that need real caution are viscose and rayon, which can water-mark and shrink, linen, which can shrink and lose crispness, and silk. Velvet can be cleaned but the pile will need resetting afterwards and the texture may change slightly. Where a manufacturer's label carries an "S" code, the fabric wants solvent cleaning instead of water. We check all of this first. A sofa ruined by the wrong method costs far more than the clean.

Holiday lets, offices and shared seating

Sofas in holiday lets and Airbnbs age at several times the rate of a domestic one, because every guest sits in a different spot and nobody treats it as their own. An annual or twice-yearly upholstery clean is one of the cheapest ways to protect your review scores, since "the sofa was grubby" is a comment that follows a listing around for months.

The same goes for reception seating and office chairs in a commercial setting, particularly fabric office chairs, which absorb everything and are almost never cleaned. We can do these out of hours as part of a periodic schedule alongside carpet work.

Upholstery cleaning prices

Priced per item rather than by time, so you know the cost before we start.

Booking upholstery alongside carpet cleaning in the same visit is always cheaper than two separate appointments, because the setup is shared. See the full Plymouth cleaning price list.