How to Clean Blinds in Place and by Soaking

Why this matters

Blinds are where a deep clean either shows or does not. A client opens the kitchen blind after the crew leaves, sees the slat tops still tacky and gray, and the whole kitchen reads as skipped. The opposite failure costs more: a crew soaks a set of faux-wood blinds in a tub, the slats bow, the headrail rusts, and the shop is replacing a window covering it was paid to dust.

The whole job turns on one call made before anything comes down: what the slats are made of, and what the soil is. Dust on any horizontal blind is cleaned in place. Grease on an aluminum or vinyl blind can come down and soak. Wood and faux wood never soak, whatever the soil.

The gate: material first, then soil

Why faux wood and wood never soak. Real wood swells and its finish lifts. Faux-wood slats are heavy and many sag or bow when they sit wet or warm, and their wider headrails hold more steel hardware. On any blind, the headrail holds the tilt gear and the cord lock, and a cordless blind carries a spring motor there too; none of it is meant to be submerged, and a soaked headrail rusts from the inside. That is why even a soaked aluminum blind keeps its headrail out of the water.

How to tell faux wood from wood. Faux wood is noticeably heavier per slat, the cut ends show a uniform core rather than grain, and the surface pattern repeats. If you cannot tell, treat it as wood.

An older vinyl mini blind. Some imported vinyl mini blinds sold before the late 1990s were the subject of a Consumer Product Safety Commission warning about lead in the plastic breaking down to dust as the slats aged. A brittle, yellowed vinyl mini blind gets gloves, a damp wipe rather than dry dusting, and a note to the client that replacement is the better answer.

Before either method

Access. Most blinds over a counter or above head height need a step stool. Use one rated for your weight, both feet on the step, never standing on the top cap, and set it so you are not reaching sideways past your shoulders; for a crew working for an employer, ladder and step-stool use falls under 29 CFR 1910.23. Over a sink, never kneel on the counter to reach.

Cords. Corded blinds are a strangulation hazard to young children. Do not leave a cord hanging in a loop while you work, and when you finish, the cord goes back on its cleat or tension device at the height the client had it. A missing cleat is a note to the client, not a fix this shop makes.

Order in the room. Blinds come before the sill, the window track and the floor below, because dust and drips fall down. See related: 'Top to Bottom, Dry to Wet: The Cleaning Sequence Rules'.

Hidden-spot test. Any cleaner new to a blind gets tried on the back of the bottom slat first. Where the blind maker's care instructions are on hand, they override this card.

Case one: three dusty bedroom blinds, cleaned in place

A deep clean. The bedroom has three aluminum 1-inch mini blinds, each about 35 inches wide with a 60-inch drop. Soil is dust and a little pet hair, no grease. The gate says in place.

1. Lower the blind fully and close the slats one way, curved side facing the room, so the slats lie as a near-flat wall. Lowered and closed, every slat is exposed and supported by its neighbors, so you can work without bending them. Half-raised, the stacked slats at the top get skipped.
2. Dust top to bottom with a slat duster or a microfiber glove. With the glove, pinch a slat lightly between thumb and fingers and slide from one end to the other, then the next slat down. Starting at the bottom drops dust from the slats above onto the ones you already did. Hold the bottom rail with your free hand on the low slats so the blind does not swing and kink.
3. Reverse the tilt and repeat. Closing the slats the other way exposes the opposite faces. One pass with the slats closed one way cleans only half of each slat.
4. Spot-clean any film with a damp cloth. Mist a microfiber face with neutral cleaner, wring it until it is nearly dry, and wipe only the slats that still show film. A wet cloth on aluminum leaves water spots and runs into the ladder strings.
5. Wipe the headrail, the wand and the bottom rail with the same damp face, then a dry one.
6. Open the slats and check from across the room, in daylight if you can get it.

In the example the three blinds took about 27 minutes, an average of 9 each. The third blind's slat tops were tacky near the window glass where condensation had held dust; that one needed step 4 on about a dozen slats, which is what pushed it past the other two.

What would change it. A blind dusty enough that the duster leaves a gray streak across the slat needs a vacuum pass with a soft brush attachment first, slats closed, top to bottom, both tilts. Dragging a loaded duster through heavy dust only moves it around.

Case two: the kitchen, one blind soaked and one not

Same deep clean, kitchen. Two windows. Over the sink, an aluminum 1-inch mini blind, about 30 inches wide with a 42-inch drop, with tacky gray film on every slat from years of cooking. On the window beside the range, a 2-inch faux-wood blind with the same film. The gate splits them: the aluminum blind comes down to soak; the faux-wood blind stays up.

The aluminum blind, taken down and soaked:

1. Raise it fully, lock the cord, and take it down. Open the bracket covers or release the clips the way that headrail is mounted, lift it out with both hands under the headrail, and unhook any hold-down brackets at the bottom. Work from the step stool beside the sink, not on the counter.
2. Line the tub. Lay an old towel or a drop cloth in the bottom of the bathtub so the headrail and slat edges cannot scratch the tub finish. A scratch in an acrylic tub is damage the shop owns.
3. Fill with lukewarm water and a mild degreaser at its label dilution. Lukewarm, not hot, because hot water can warp vinyl and is no help to aluminum. The dilution and the dwell come from the degreaser's label, written as a ratio and ounces per gallon on the bottle the crew mixes from; see related: 'Dilution Ratios and Ounces per Gallon Card'. Gloves and eye protection on, because degreaser solutions are alkaline and splash when the blind goes in.
4. Lower the blind in with the headrail resting out of the water, across the tub edge on a folded towel. Extend the slats along the bottom of the tub, opened flat.
5. Let it sit for the label's dwell, then work the slats. A soft brush or a microfiber face along each slat, both sides, with the slats tilted one way then the other by hand. The degreaser has done the work by then, and scrubbing early only spreads the film.
6. Rinse thoroughly with the shower head on lukewarm, top to bottom, until the rinse water runs clear and the slats no longer feel slick. Degreaser left on aluminum dries to a dull residue that attracts the next layer of grease faster.
7. Hang to dry. Hook the headrail over the shower rod on a towel, slats open so water drains, for several hours or until fully dry. Wipe the headrail by hand with a damp then dry cloth while the slats drip.
8. Clean the tub after. Drain it, rinse the degreaser out and dry the surface, so the bathroom is left as you found it.

In the example the soak saved the most time where it counted: the slats had been tacky enough that wiping in place would have meant degreasing each of about 50 slats by hand on both sides.

The faux-wood blind, in place. Lowered and closed one way, the tech worked slat by slat with a microfiber face misted with degreaser at its label dilution, wiping one end to the other, then a second face damp with plain water to remove the residue, then dry. Then the reverse tilt. Never spray degreaser onto the blind itself, where it runs into the ladder strings and the headrail. It took about 25 minutes of hands-on work against about 15 for the soaked blind (take-down, brushing, rinsing and rehanging, not counting the dwell and drying), which is the price of the gate and is why a kitchen with several faux-wood blinds is quoted with that time in it.

Rehanging and testing

Once the soaked blind is fully dry:

1. Rehang it in its brackets and close the covers or seat the clips until you feel them catch. Reconnect any hold-down brackets.
2. Test the tilt. Turn the wand both directions. The slats should close fully and evenly both ways and open to level, with no slat lagging behind its neighbors. A lagging slat usually means a ladder rung slipped off it, which can be reseated by hand.
3. Test the lift. Raise the blind fully, lower it fully, then stop it at about one-third and two-thirds of the drop and check the cord lock holds each time. The bottom rail should hang level; a tilted bottom rail means the lift cords are uneven.
4. Put the cord back on its cleat at the height the client had it.

The in-place blinds get the same tilt and lift test, since dusting can knock a slat out of its ladder too.

Finish test

• Slat tops clean by touch. Run a fingertip along the top of three slats, at the top, middle and bottom. No dust, no tack.
• No water spots or residue when the slats are opened in daylight.
• Tilt and lift pass as above.
• Sill and floor below get cleaned after the blinds, so nothing that fell is left behind.
• The tub is clean and dry, if one was used.

When it is not a cleaning job

A blind with bent or creased slats, a broken tilt wand, a cord lock that will not hold, or a cordless blind whose spring motor will not lift is a repair or replacement for the client. Cellular shades, pleated shades, Roman shades and fabric vertical vanes are not slat blinds: they are vacuumed with a brush attachment, spot-cleaned only if their label allows it, and never soaked. Fabric that needs more than that is a referral, in the same way upholstery is; see related: 'How to Read an Upholstery Cleaning Code Before Spotting'.

References

• OSHA 29 CFR 1910.23, Ladders (step stools and ladders used by employees)
• US Consumer Product Safety Commission, window covering cord safety guidance
• See related: 'Dilution Ratios and Ounces per Gallon Card'
• See related: 'Top to Bottom, Dry to Wet: The Cleaning Sequence Rules'
• Blind manufacturer care instructions