It is getting to be that time of the year again. It is getting cold and it is time to pull out the winter coats. Unfortunately our kitties got a little too friendly with ours. Any and all suggestions for dry cleaners that handle down coats would be very much appreciated. We asked at the laundrymat that we use, but they don't do down.48 responses total.
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I'd try one coat to see if it works. I've had cat urine come out of clothees, but never down. With the way cat urine hangs around, it mystifies me why we even develop biological weapons.
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Of my two cats, only one pees "inappropriately" - and that's when the litter box wasn't up to snuff and she peed in my laundry basket. Other than that, it's golden.
Gomez hasn't peed anywhere but the litter box ever since I had him fixed back in '98.
I need recommendations for a dry cleaners, not whether cats pee in the litter box or elsewhere. I didn't even say that the cats peed on the coats, just that they got friendly with them. Our cats like to sleep on things that smell like us. This gets cat fur and, sometimes, hairball spit up on things. We do have a problem with the litter box not getting cleaned often enough (hard to do with 6 cats and people with busy schedules). As far as I can tell only one of the 4 coats actually got peed on, the others were put down to close to an unknown puddle by a human. And the orange fur really shows up on a black coat! And if there is that much orange fur with one orange cat and one with only a bit of orange, I don't even want to think how much fur there is on the coat from the 3.5 black cats that doesn't show up without looking closely.
Down can easily be washed in a washing machine (unlike wool) and dried on a line indoors (or maybe on a low-heat power dryer setting.) Some people advise putting in some sneakers in the washing machine to keep the down from balling up. You can separate the clumps of down by hand after washing (push the down flat). I have never heard of dry cleaning down. Wool and silk need hand washing or they will shrink. Feathers won't shrink.
I have gotten the smell of cat piss out of a down comforter by washing it with a gallon of white vineger in the water. I washed it again without vinegar to get the vineger smell out of it. Wet down is very stinky all on its own. I dried it for almost an hour at a low setting and then put it in the sun for several hours. If you decide to wash these jackets just remember that down is very light when it is dry and VERY heavy when it is wet. If you are not careful, the wet down can break through the baffle stiching which will cause it to clump up when it is dry. Be very careful to support the weight when moving it from the washer to the dryer.
due to the weight issue it's usually safer to wash down-filled items in a front-loading machine, rather than in a top-loading agitator-type washer. consider taking it to the laundromat..
There's some stuff you can buy (probably at the pet store) which removes piss stank.
And, from now on, it might be wise to store the winter coats in garment bags so they don't get exposed to cat fur/hairballs/cat yak, etc.
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I wash both wool and silk in the washing machine without any problems with shrinking or felting. Fabrics are my hobby, would be my livelihood if there was any real money in it. I would consider washing the coats if I had my own washing machine and could use the 'delicate' setting. I don't trust the machines at the laundromat. They don't seem to have a delicate setting. And the dryers have a low heat setting that gets almost as hot as the high setting on the last dryer I owned.
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My down jackets are made of very tough nylon and I wash them on the regular setting and don't use a dryer.
I had good luck with my sleeping bag by taking it to a laundromat with a large, front-loading, commercial coin-op washer/extractor and using that. Front-loading machines are gentler than agitator machines.
Do you just use warm water or do you have a brand of down-safe detergent you like?
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Won't most detergents do the same?
I followed the instructions on the tag attached to the sleeping bag. I don't remember what they were, right off hand.
I use dish detergent for wool and regular laundry detergent for feathers. The wool would shrink if exposed to an alkali. Feathers don't shrink.
re 19: Yes.
In a normal-sized load of laundry, one cup of white vinegar will get the stink of almost anything out of almost anything else, and doesn't leave the clothes smelling like vinegar.
The coats were taken to Mr. Stadium and washed. Took STeve about 3-4 hours. Two wash cycles, one with Woolite, one with Fabreze; about 2.5 hours in dryer on low heat. All nice and clean and fluffy.
I use vinegar to clean my washer now and then. A couple cups of it added to an empty hot water cycle will remove water deposits from the inner workings. Tang does the same thing for dishwashers, incidentally. Run the dishwasher empty (no dishes, no soap) and after the first fill cycle finishes open the door, dump a can of Tang (or generic equivalent) into the water in the bottom, close the door, and let the entire cycle run. It'll clean all the scum and deposits off the inside and remove odors.
Tang as in the orange drink??
Artificially flavored drinks often contain citric acid. Vinegar is acetic acid. Rane, which of these is stronger and how would you suggest cleaning out the deposits of lime in Jim's toilet when he removes it to make a new gasket? The current fix is a bucket under the tank and the toilet is a nonstandard size from the thirties - it fits closer to the wall than the new ones.
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Saliva contains digestive acids. I'm just sayin'. :)
Saliva is close to neutral. It contains an amylase that digests starch,
mainly to maltose. However starches are in the mouth for only a short time
so only a little is digested. What that does is make the starches taste
slightly sweet, which induces you to eat more.
Citric acid is a stronger acid than acetic, but calcium citrate is not
very soluble. Freshly deposited hardness is easily attacked by acetic acid
(in vinegar) but old "lime" deposits are much more resistant. I'm not sure
why that is, unless it is some conversion of the deposits to calcium
silicate, which is insoluble in acid. The best acid for removal of the
deposits is hydrochloric acid (still sometimes found called "muriatic
acid"), though this is a lot more dangerous to work with than vinegar.
Sulfuric acid can also be used and might be more obtainable ("battery
acid" is about 30% sulfuric acid - dilute to 10% for use - and be very
careful as it is a strong acid).
Re #26: Yes, the orange drink. Re #27: There's a commercial product called CLR (for Calcium, Lime, and Rust) that you might try.
We don't have lemons or vinegar but we do have crystalline citric acid. Can calcium citrate be scrubbed off more easily than calcium carbonate? It is more interesting to use what we already have than to buy products. We were supposed to use muriatic acid to remove excess mortar from bricks but I think vinegar worked there.
(Would people please totally forget the term "muriatic acid"? It is hydrochloric acid.)
The instructions said 'muriatic acid' to clean the bricks. The term comes from the Latin root mur for wall. The Romans may have used it on walls. It is not supposed to harm the bricks.
No acids except hydrofluoric harm bricks. The main virtue of hydrochloric acid is that it is cheap, hence it is used to clean bricks.
I think it is also quicker than vinegar. What is in toilet bowl cleaner, phosphoric acid?
There are different brands. Ingredients are on the label (usually). Hydrochloric acid is a stronger acid than acetic acid.
... and as related above, takes more care in its application(s).
I think my toilet bown cleaner is hydrochloric acid, but I'd have to look.
hydrochloric acid would probably rot the bowl. more likely just bleach.
If the bowl is all ceramic, with no metal, hydrochloric acid would not do any damage to it.
I stand corrected.
We had a granite sink that was ruined when we used some acid in it. I want to say HCl, but coult it have been another acid?
Granite? Granite would be unaffected by acid. Perhaps it was marble? That dissolves in acid.
maybe a very low grade marble then?
Soapstone used to be a common thing to make laboratory sinks out of.
Soapstone is also impervious to acids (and alkalis).
grungy /WHORES/.
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