Rug Cleaning in Glasgow — Wool, Silk, Persian & Antique

Guide £25–£40 per rug · Free collection & delivery

Rug cleaning in Glasgow is typically £25–£40 for a small rug, £45–£70 for a medium one and £75–£110 for a large machine-made rug, with hand-knotted and Persian rugs usually £90–£180 after inspection. Collection and delivery are free anywhere we cover. Hard-wearing wool-blend and synthetic rugs can be cleaned in your home; anything hand-knotted or delicate is washed in our workshop, dried flat under controlled airflow and usually back with you in five to seven days.

A good rug is usually the most valuable soft furnishing in the room and the one most likely to be ruined by the wrong cleaning method. Wool browns. Silk bleeds. Jute rots. Cotton fringes fray and grey.

Our rug cleaning in Glasgow starts with fibre and dye identification, then a colour-fastness test on every colour in the rug. Only then do we choose between in-home low-moisture cleaning and a full workshop wash with controlled drying.

Rug cleaning prices in Glasgow

Guide ranges including VAT, with collection and delivery included. Hand-knotted rugs are priced after inspection rather than down the phone, because size, fibre, foundation, how colour-fast the dyes turn out to be and how much contamination is in it all change the job — a 2×3m Persian with pet urine through the foundation is a different job from the same rug that is simply dusty. Collection for inspection costs nothing and commits you to nothing: if you do not like the figure, we bring the rug back. Full price list →

Free rug pickup and delivery across Glasgow

You do not need to bring your rug anywhere. We collect it from your home free of charge anywhere in our Glasgow and Greater Glasgow coverage area, wrap it before it leaves the house, and bring it back wrapped. It is covered by our treatment-risk insurance for the whole time we hold it — separate from public liability, which only covers damage to your house, not to your rug.

In-home cleaning suits synthetic and hard-wearing wool-blend rugs that are not heavily soiled: cleaned on site, extracted thoroughly and dry in a few hours. Workshop cleaning is for Persian, Oriental, hand-knotted, silk, viscose, large rugs and anything heavily contaminated: dusted, washed, rinsed, dried flat under controlled airflow, groomed and delivered back, usually within five to seven days. If you need it back faster, tell us and we will say honestly whether it is possible.

Shaggy, wool and area rugs

Most rugs we clean in Glasgow are not antiques. They are the wool rug under the coffee table, the shaggy rug in the bedroom, or the big machine-made area rug that covers half the living room floor. These need the right method too, and they are usually quicker and cheaper to get right.

Shaggy rugs. Long pile holds a surprising amount of grit, crumbs and pet hair at the base, where a vacuum cannot reach. We dust them first, wash with controlled moisture so the backing does not stay wet, and dry them flat with the pile combed upright so the shag does not mat or flatten. Most go to the workshop so they can dry properly.

Wool rugs. Wool is alkaline-sensitive, so we use a pH-balanced, wool-safe product and test the dyes first. Washed wrongly, wool turns brown or shrinks. Washed correctly, it comes up soft and bright.

Large and area rugs. Anything over about 2×3m is hard to wash and dry properly in a home, so it goes to the workshop for a full wash and controlled drying — £75–£110 for a machine-made rug, collection and delivery included.

Washable and synthetic rugs. Polypropylene and polyester rugs are the most forgiving and can usually be cleaned on the spot during a carpet clean.

Persian & antique rug cleaning

A hand-knotted Persian, Afghan, Turkish or Caucasian rug is not a carpet that happens to be loose. It is hand-spun wool, often dyed with traditional dyes that are not colour-fast, knotted onto a cotton or wool foundation, with fringes that are structural rather than decorative. So these rugs are collected and cleaned in the workshop, in this order:

• Inspection and dye test. Every colour is tested separately. Reds and deep blues in older hand-dyed rugs are the usual offenders, and a red bleeding into an ivory field is permanent.
• Dusting. A hand-knotted rug can hold several kilos of dry grit in the foundation, below the pile, where no extraction reaches. It has to be vibrated out before any water goes in — the step that separates a proper rug wash from a carpet clean done to a rug.
• Washing. Immersion or controlled low-moisture washing with a wool-safe solution, worked with the nap by hand.
• Acid rinse. Removes the product and returns the wool to its natural slightly acidic pH, which keeps it feeling like wool rather than straw.
• Flat drying and grooming. Slow and flat under controlled airflow — rushing it causes shrinkage and distortion — then the pile is groomed in its natural direction and the fringes cleaned and straightened.

Antique rugs — roughly anything over eighty years old — get a slower process again. Their dyes are usually natural (madder, indigo, walnut husk, cochineal) and far less colour-fast, cotton warps go brittle with age, and most have old repairs in modern thread that behave differently in a wash. We inspect and photograph condition before we accept one, and if a rug is too fragile to wash safely we will say so and recommend a textile conservator instead.

The weaving tradition changes the detail, not the principle: Turkish rugs are often wool-on-wool and more forgiving of moisture but carry some of the least colour-fast reds; Afghan and Bokhara rugs hold the most dry soil in the foundation; bold Caucasian and Kazak designs show a dye bleed most; Indian, Pakistani and Chinese pieces are more often cotton-foundation with modern dyes. You do not need to know which you have — we identify construction, fibre and foundation at inspection and the method follows from that.

Silk, viscose, jute — rugs that should not get wet

Silk is strong when dry and weak when wet, and its dyes are often fugitive, so it is dye-tested on every colour and cleaned with a specialist low-moisture method, never immersion. Viscose — sold as art silk, bamboo silk or banana silk — loses most of its strength when wet, yellows where it has been damp and distorts permanently if brushed against the nap. Most firms refuse it; we clean it with a dry-compound method and will tell you plainly if one is already past the point where cleaning helps. Jute, sisal and seagrass rot and stain with water and are cleaned dry only.

Rug dry cleaning means either a dry compound — an absorbent, slightly damp powder brushed into the pile and vacuumed away with the soil — or a solvent that carries soil without wetting the fibre the way water does. We also use it on rugs whose dyes fail a colour-fastness test, and on anything that has to be back in use the same day. Everything else cleans more thoroughly with a proper wash, and we will tell you which yours needs.

Pet accidents, repairs and what we do not do

Urine on a hand-knotted rug is urgent. It passes straight through to the foundation, the uric acid weakens both wool and cotton warp, and it causes dye migration that can become permanent in weeks. Tell us when you book: it needs a full immersion wash with an enzyme stage, not a surface clean.

Cleaning and repair are separate trades. As part of a clean we handle minor fringe tidying, re-securing a loose edge binding and small areas of loose pile. We do not do reweaving, pile reconstruction, full re-fringing or structural foundation repair — we will tell you what the rug needs and point you to a specialist restorer. If it needs both, clean it first: repairers colour-match far more accurately on a clean rug.

Rug cleaning Glasgow-wide — every postcode covered

We cover Glasgow city and the surrounding towns with no travel charge — from the West End and Southside out to Paisley, East Kilbride and Bearsden. Pick your area for local availability:

Before you book us

Worth a look first: the before and after gallery shows real Glasgow jobs shot from one position in the same light, our reviews are every one we have actually received, and about us explains who turns up, what IICRC training covers and why treatment-risk insurance matters more than public liability alone. Practical questions — dry times, moving furniture, pets and children — are answered on the FAQ page.

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