Offering Ultrasonic Blinds Cleaning

This is the fifth part of a five-part article on window blinds cleaning.

When traditional blinds cleaning methods don’t cut it, BSCs often turn to ultrasonic blinds cleaners.

Ultrasonic blinds cleaning machines usually have two tanks. One side is filled with water mixed with a chemical solvent and the other with normal water. Electrodes at the bottom of the tank with the chemicals create thousands of tiny bubbles, a process called cavitation.

“Those bubbles essentially explode over the blind, and that’s what does the cleaning,” says Ryan Clark, business development manager for Puget Sound Blind Cleaners in Renton, Washington.

When cleaning blinds, the cavitation process lasts just seconds, since the blinds could become damaged if left in the tank too long. After the blinds are dipped in the bubbly mixture, they are then rinsed off in the other  side of the tank. Some companies hang the blinds in a warehouse to air dry, some hand dry the blinds with towels and others blow dry them. There are even mobile ultrasonic cleaning companies that bring the entire operation to the facility in need of cleaning.

Depending on the material of the blinds and the size of the job, companies using ultrasonic machines can have the blinds back to the customer within a day, says Ed Kolenda, sales manager at River City Blind Cleaning in Wyoming, Michigan.

Since the machines can easily cost more than $20,000, companies such as Management Services Northwest typically hire subcontractors that specialize in the ultrasonic cleaning method.

Most of River City’s customers bring in blinds for ultrasonic cleaning only as needed, which is typically less than once a year.

The trick, says Kolenda, is knowing how different types of blinds and materials respond to the ultrasonic cleaning process. Some varieties of blinds have glues that can pull apart in the water, and other types of blinds are simply delicate.

Blinds cleaning may not prove to be a big moneymaker for BSCs, says Mandelstam. It’s more of a convenience for the client.

But Bruland at Management Service Northwest says her company wouldn’t offer the service if it wasn’t profitable. And there are other benefits as well.

“It’s a service that we can provide to our clients,” says Bruland, “just another service that we can take care of for them so that they don’t have to contact another vendor.”