Whatever happened to DIY dry cleaning.?
Someone mentioned they have a box that looks like Dryel but is generic so one can do dry cleaning in his own home.
Good idea?
I never knew or don't remember why do it yourself dry cleaning machines at laundromats disappeared.
Two words- toxic waste. Any commercial use of those chemicals is called a 'point source', IIRC, and there are all sorts of permitting and inspection hoops to jump through. Same reason that almost all ma'n'pa dry cleaners, the few that are left, have outsourced their cleaning to giant industrial plants. And in a city where the person who owns the store almost never owns the building, the landlord won't rent to anyone who uses chemicals, at least not without a lot of extra money changing hands. The possible downside for the property owner is just way too steep.
Makes sense. This is pretty much what also happened to a friend of mine with the metal plating business he owned.
The little local dry cleaning store in a shopping center where I live does one-day dry cleaning. There are no giant industrial clothes cleaners nearby. Where are they sending the clothes that can do one day service and delivery?
Heh. When I was a kid, about every third shopping center, had a place that advertised same-day service. 'One Hour Martinizing' ring a bell?
I did say 'almost'- either your little local store is one of the exceptions that proves the rule, and does enough business to make it worth having their own permits and modern machines, or they have a very good outsourced provider that picks it all up late in the day, hauls it to the nearest city with a production cleaning plant, where it is cleaned second/third shift, and delivered back in the morning. If you take clothes there, look for a cut-off-time sign, or ask them. No reason for them to keep it a secret- the huge places don't take walk-in customers, at least around here. Service to the trade only. Same business model as the outsourced laundries many hotels and restaurants and such use.
Personally, I decided years ago that 'dry clean only' clothes are for rich people, and never buy anything like that.
Once when my brother was visiting here, he went out looking for a one-hour dry cleaner. Darn I can't remember if none advertised that or they said it, but when he asked for it, they didn't have it.
I found out that if you get a polyester/wool blend the moths won't eat your suit like they do an all-wool suit. Silly goofs, they don't even eat the wool parts!
(or maybe other blends)
On 2/2/2011 11:25 AM, mm wrote: (snip)
At this point, I don't buy anything that can't go in the washer. They don't pay me enough to wear a tie and jacket.
-- aem sends...
I decided, with fear & trembling, to wash my expensive wool pants by hand in a Woolite-type clone. Thorough rinsing. Hung carefully on clothesline. (I have never used a dryer; perfectly satisfied with the big dryer in the sky; of course my climate allows this.) Came out just beautiful. I have very few garments that absolutely require "dry cleaning": KISS.
Not even a funeral?
I had a second hand but great condition except for one cut sleeping bag that needed mending and my mother did it and then she took it to a dry cleaner to be cleaned. The cleaner explained that it could be a fatal mistake, that even after it aired a long time there would still be plenty of fumes to kill me. And he wouldn't do it (although my mother didn't want him to after that.) Maybe that was another reason diy dry cleaning disappeared.
What I miss are the small bottles of dry cleaning fluid, carbon tetrachloride I believe, with the dauber top to apply the fluid to your clothes to clean a small spot on a suit or other wool garment.The spray stuff they sell now, the kind that dries into a white powder, never seems to work very well.
Naptha works wonders
Most of the old people I know have died already. I do still have a monkey suit from years ago that lives in a plastic bag- hopefully the plastic fumes and the flowers will hide any odors. I think I last wore it around 5 years ago?
*When I worked for my dad in the 60's he had a lot of customers in the laundry and dry cleaning business. I remember wiring those self-serve dry cleaning machines. At that time they used perchlorethylene (Perc for short) in those machines and other commercial machines. That fluid got distilled periodically to get the dirt out of the fluid. Another process used a fluid that I only knew as petroleum which went down the sewer drain after it was used. These were all open systems and the chemicals evaporated freely into the air. A few years later the government required closed systems so no evaporation occurred. I think one type of machine used fluorocarbons while others still used perc. The dry cleaner that I use now told me his machine uses a soy based cleaning fluid after I made a comment once about the place not smelling like the chemicals I remember growing up with.
I would guess that a number of forces caused the demise of the self-serve machine. Government regulation which made it too expensive to design and make new machines in compliance every few years. Man-made fibers such as polyester which don't need dry cleaning. The need to press the remaining clothes such as wool suit and sport jackets that still do require dry cleaning.
I have 10 of those hanging in my closet gathering a lot of dust. I used to wear a suit every day of the work week and on Sunday. Rotated through them thru the week. Then we started with casual Friday and I got out of wearing it one day a week. Not long after that business casual became the norm and the suits went the way of the typewriter. Had to have one of them cleaned recently so I could attend a funeral and guess what...I was one of a very small minority wearing a suit.
Guess I must be one of those OLD PEOPLE who just hasn't died yet. While it is comfortable to not have to wear the old monkey suit I miss the professionalism that it generally represented.
That is absolutely true. As a longtime Sierra Club member, I recall getting a heads-up from my hiking group leader who told me to just wash my down bag in the bathtub with mild soap. And do NOT try to lift it out after repeated rinsing; the weight of the water would break the baffles. Just wring gently it in place until able to maneuver it out, slide it into the laundry basket, and spread on the grass to dry.
HB
That's sort of what I was thinking. You can skip professionalism at your job if you don't care, or the boss doesn't care or doesn't insist.
But to skip formality at a funeral, where it's meant to show respect to someone ELSE, not to promote one's own career, seems very rude to the family of the deceased, and if one is part of the family, to the rest of the family and the deceased himself.
Good Lord! You WASH a sleeping bag? I can't imagine...
Well, I remember one time in the boy scouts --- an armadillo ran into a fellow camper's sleeping bag while he was sound asleep.
The 'diller crapped an enormous amount of green diller-shit and scratched the bejesus out of the boy's legs. Nothing for it but to toss the sleeping bag on the campfire (sans armadillo).
The camper was devastated. After a shot of brandy, he slowly came around, but I seriously doubt he'll ever be sane.
Think you're wrong on your original premise. When I google it, a lot of hits come up for kits you can buy.
I don't dress up for funerals but will wear a suit at my own.
I try to avoid funerals, I tell my friends that if I don't come to theirs, they don't have to come to mine.
Some of us don't judge professionalism by appearance, we judge it by the quality of the work produced, and how well the employee works with others.
Quite frankly, when I see all the long-sleeved buzz-cut kids with the chokers around their necks in my office, I have a lot of trouble not laughing at them. I don't, of course, that wouldn't be professional. And since they are contractors, I know it must be a corporate mandate. But they all look like they are in a high school play.
Hey, eventually, after a decade of rolling off the ground sheet onto the dirt and uh, various internal emissions, even a down bag needs help.
HB
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