How do you clean a roller blind?

How do you clean a roller blind?

Start with the care instructions for the fabric. Each roller blind fabric comes from a supplier with its own instructions, including whether it can take water, a cleaning product, heat or steam. Your retailer can give you the instructions for the fabric you chose. They overrule any general advice, including this page.

• Dust. With the blind lowered, wipe the fabric lightly from top to bottom with a clean, dry, soft cloth, or use a soft brush on a vacuum at low suction. Go gently.
• Handle. Raise and lower the blind by its chain, or by its controls if it is motorised, and touch the fabric only with clean hands.
• Air. Open windows when you can. Damp air and condensation on the glass can lead to mould on the fabric nearest the window.
• Motors. If the blind is motorised, keep water away from the motor end and the controls.

Blot a fresh mark with a clean, dry, white cloth. Do not rub. Roller blind fabrics are usually coated on one face, and some fabrics mark, so check the care instructions before using water or any cleaning product. If they allow it, test on a hidden spot first and stop if the colour moves. For a mark that has set in, ask your retailer who they would suggest.

Leave the blind on its brackets and leave the chain safety device where it is. If a blind needs to come down for cleaning or any other reason, ask your retailer or installer.

Can roller blinds be washed?

Don't assume so. Whether a roller blind fabric can be washed, wiped with a damp cloth or treated with a cleaning product depends on the fabric, and only its care instructions can say.

For comparison, many coated or self lined blockout curtain fabrics must not be machine washed, tumble dried or ironed on the coated side, because the coating can crack or stick. Roller blind fabrics are usually coated too, so a coating is a good reason to check first.

How do you clean blockout, light filtering and sunscreen roller blinds?

All three start the same way: a gentle dust, then extra care with anything wetter.

Why do blinds get so dusty?

Dust floats in the air of every room and settles on whatever hangs still. A blind hangs in one place all day, so its fabric collects it, and the open weave of a sunscreen fabric can hold it. A light, regular dust stops it building up.

Before you clean, ask your retailer for the care instructions for your exact fabric, whether the blind can take water or a cleaning product at all, and who to call if a mark won't shift. Speedy Blinds makes roller blinds for retailers, and your retailer can take a question about the fabric to the workroom.