Commercial Upholstery Cleaning
Commercial Upholstery Cleaning in London
Offices, hotels, pubs, restaurants and venues — cleaned outside trading hours, dried fast enough to open on time.
At a glance
- Sectors
- Offices, hotels, pubs, restaurants, venues, serviced flats
- Working hours
- Evenings, overnight and weekends
- Method bias
- Low-moisture, so rooms reopen quickly
- Billing
- Per site, invoiced monthly on account
- Price
- Quoted after a site survey
Commercial upholstery cleaning is a different job from domestic work, and the difference is not the equipment. It is that the room has to be back in service. A hotel cannot hold twelve rooms out of inventory waiting for headboards to dry, a pub cannot lose a Friday evening, and an office cannot have a floor of desks unusable on Monday morning. Everything about how we schedule and which method we choose follows from that.
The volume is also different in kind. A domestic sofa gets a few hours of use a day from the same two or three people. A pub banquette takes hundreds of people a week, with drink spills, food, and outdoor clothing pressed against it constantly. Contract fabrics are specified to handle that — most commercial upholstery is rated to 40,000 Martindale rubs or more against 15,000 for domestic — but they still need a maintenance cycle, and the cycle is far shorter than a home sofa.
We work to a schedule agreed in advance, in slots that suit the site rather than us, and we invoice monthly on account rather than per visit. For multi-site operators we keep a record of what was cleaned where and when, which is what makes the next budget cycle straightforward.
Step by step
How commercial upholstery works
Every stage below is done on every job. The order matters as much as the products.
- 1
Site survey and a written schedule of works
We walk the site, count and categorise every item, identify the fabrics — contract fabrics are frequently different from what they look like — and note access constraints such as lift availability, loading bay hours and where power is. You get a written schedule listing every item, the method for each, the time required and the price. That document is what the visit is run against.
- 2
Compliance paperwork before the first visit
Most commercial sites need this in place before anyone comes on site: a risk assessment and method statement for the work, our public liability certificate, and COSHH data sheets for every product being used. We supply all of it as a pack up front rather than being chased for it on the morning of the job.
- 3
Scheduling around trading hours
Offices are usually done from 18:00 or overnight. Pubs and restaurants are done on the quiet morning after a late close, or on a closed day. Hotels are done room-block by room-block so the front desk never loses more inventory than agreed. Retail is done before opening. We fit the site, and the schedule is fixed in advance so your team knows exactly when we are in.
- 4
Method chosen for turnaround, not just for result
On commercial work we lean towards low-moisture encapsulation wherever the fabric and soil level allow, because it reopens a room in an hour rather than six. Where soiling genuinely needs extraction — a heavily used banquette, a hotel room after a long stay — we use it and plan the drying time into the slot, with air movers running from the moment the pass is finished.
- 5
Sector-specific detail work
Offices: the task chair is the real job — the seat pan, the arm pads and the mesh back, where sebum and hand grease concentrate. Pubs: the piping along banquette edges, which holds beer and food residue, plus odour treatment in the fabric. Hotels: headboards, the chair by the window nobody ever cleans, and the desk stool. Each sector gets a checklist rather than a general pass.
- 6
Sign-off and drying confirmation
A named person on your side signs off the item list at the end of the visit. We confirm in writing when each area is safe to reopen, and where we have used air movers we say when they can be removed. For hotels we confirm per room block so housekeeping can turn rooms without waiting on the whole floor.
What we clean, by sector
| Sector | Typical items | When we work | Suggested cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offices & co-working | Task chairs, breakout sofas, meeting-room seating, acoustic panels | Evenings and weekends | 6–12 months |
| Hotels & serviced flats | Headboards, bedroom chairs, lobby and lounge seating, corridor runners | Room-block by room-block | 6 months, lobby quarterly |
| Pubs & bars | Banquettes, booth seating, bar stools, carpet | Early morning or closed days | 3–6 months |
| Restaurants & cafés | Dining chairs, bench seating, booth upholstery | Before service or on a closed day | 3–6 months |
| Venues & function rooms | Stacking and banqueting chairs, lounge furniture | Between bookings | After each major event season |
| Care homes & clinics | Waiting-room and day-room seating, wipe-clean vinyl | Quiet periods, by arrangement | 3 months or as policy requires |
Contract fabrics and why they behave differently
Commercial upholstery is usually specified to a standard rather than chosen for looks alone, and that changes how it cleans. Crib 5 fire-retardant treatments, common on pub and hotel seating, can react badly to strongly alkaline products and lose their rating — so we use a pH-appropriate product and avoid stripping the treatment.
Vinyl and faux leather dominate in food service and healthcare because they wipe down. They tolerate cleaning well but crack if repeatedly cleaned with solvent or harsh alkaline products, and the cracking appears at the seat front where they flex. They need a gentle cleaner and a vinyl conditioner rather than a leather one.
High-Martindale wool blends are common in offices and lounges. They need wool-safe chemistry exactly as domestic wool does, and they are the fabric most often damaged by a cleaning contractor working fast with a general-purpose product.
Odour control in pubs and restaurants
Hospitality upholstery accumulates a specific mix: beer that has soaked through banquette piping into the foam, food oils, and in older buildings the residual smell of pre-2007 smoking that resurfaces when fabric gets warm and humid.
Masking it with fragrance is a short-term fix that customers notice. The approach that actually works is removing the source — extraction through the affected panel, enzyme treatment where the residue is organic, and where beer has reached the foam beneath a banquette, accepting that the foam may need replacing rather than promising a clean will solve it.
We will tell you which of those two you are looking at after the survey. It is cheaper for you to know before the refit budget is set than afterwards.
Working on your site
- RAMS and COSHH sheets supplied before the first visit, not on request afterwards.
- Public liability certificate provided in advance for your records.
- Wet-floor signage in place and routes kept clear while we work.
- Out-of-hours access arranged through your building management or security.
- Named contact on site who signs off the item list at the end of the visit.
- Monthly invoicing on account; purchase order references carried on every invoice.
Honest fit
Is this the right service for your sofa?
We would rather turn a job down than take it on knowing the result will disappoint you.
Right for
- Offices needing task chairs and breakout seating cleaned outside working hours
- Hotels and serviced apartments working room-block by room-block
- Pubs, bars and restaurants needing banquettes done before opening
- Managing agents and facilities teams running multi-site schedules
- Venues needing seating turned around between bookings
Not right for
- Single-item one-off jobs — a domestic booking is cheaper for you
- Sites where furniture has failed and needs reupholstering rather than cleaning
- Work requiring specialist access equipment such as scaffold or MEWP
Questions
Commercial upholstery — common questions
Can you work outside our opening hours?
Yes — evenings, overnight and weekends are the majority of our commercial work. Offices are usually done from 18:00 or overnight, pubs early morning after a late close, hotels room-block by room-block, and retail before opening. The slot is agreed at the survey and fixed in the schedule of works so your team knows exactly when we are on site.
How quickly can a room be back in use?
With low-moisture encapsulation, roughly an hour — which is why we default to it on commercial work wherever the soil level allows. Where hot water extraction is genuinely needed, plan on three to six hours with air movers running, and we build that into the slot rather than discovering it on the night. We confirm in writing when each area is safe to reopen.
Do you provide RAMS, COSHH sheets and insurance documents?
Yes, as a pack before the first visit rather than on request afterwards. That covers a risk assessment and method statement for the work, COSHH data sheets for every product used on your site, and our public liability certificate for your records. If your building management has its own contractor approval process, send us the forms and we will complete them ahead of the visit.
How often should commercial seating be cleaned?
It depends on footfall far more than on age. Pub and restaurant seating generally needs it every three to six months, hotel bedroom furniture around every six with lobbies quarterly, and office task chairs every six to twelve. We recommend an interval per item type at the survey, based on what we actually see rather than a blanket figure.
Can you handle multiple sites on one account?
Yes. Multi-site operators are billed monthly on one account with purchase order references carried through on every invoice, and we keep a record of what was cleaned at which site and when. That record is generally what makes the following year’s budgeting straightforward, and it is available to you whenever you want it.
Will cleaning affect the fire-retardant treatment on our seating?
It can, if the wrong chemistry is used — strongly alkaline products can strip a Crib 5 treatment and cost the fabric its rating. We identify treated fabrics at the survey and use pH-appropriate products on them. If seating needs re-treating after cleaning, we will tell you at the survey so it can be planned rather than discovered later.
Related
Other services that may suit better
If the fit panel above suggests this is not your method, these are the nearest alternatives.
Carpet & sofa combined
Carpets, stairs, rugs and upholstery in a single visit — which removes a second call-out and a second set-up from the bill.
£130 for a 3-seater plus two roomsLeather sofa cleaning
Cleaned with pH-balanced products matched to the hide type, then conditioned to put back the oils that cause cracking when they are lost.
£85 for a 3-seaterSteam sofa cleaning
Hot water extraction at 60–80°C. The deepest clean available for cotton, linen, polyester and most synthetic weaves.
£75 for a 3-seaterCommercial upholstery across London
This service is available everywhere we work. Each area page covers the local postcodes, parking and Congestion Charge position, and what we typically find in the housing there.
Prices for this and every other service are on the full price list, or build an estimate in about thirty seconds. Minimum call-out £60.
Get a price without the sales call
Tell us what you have and where you are. We come back with a figure, and if we think the job is not worth doing we will say so.
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