Over last winter we positioned some moisture traps from the pound shop in the Orion and they did their job admirably,each being at least half full of water.
In March prior to our first trip away I brought the van home and placed the traps on the rear dinette cushion for the short journey,thinking they would be safe there and if they did spill it was only water.
Oh deary me how wrong can you be.
The traps did indeed spill,but what came out was not water but a greasy sort of substance which saturated parts of the cushion and has since defeated all methods known to man to dry it out or otherwise get rid of it.
The cushion always feels damp no matter what you do.
I have left it in the sun numerous times and used a hair dryer all to no avail.
When I set the van up for winter the cushion felt particularly damp so I brought it home for the usual attempts at drying it out.
SWMBO was,I could tell,teetering on getting me to buy a replacement at about £240 or so.
Recently I was browsing the Bailey Spares website and noticed that the buttons that go through the cushion were for sale separately so,I thought,it must be feasible to remove them and then remove the cover to wash it.
So we set about removing the five buttons keeping the cover attached to the foam and putting the seat cover and buttons in the washing machine at 30 degrees.
Success,the greasiness was gone and all was now well with the cover.
When dry the cover fitted back over the foam OK,but the tricky bit was passing the white toggle pieces on the end of the buttons back through the foam.
We managed this,eventually,by taping the toggle pieces to a knitting needle,and passing it through the foam.
They get caught on the metal springs sometimes but eventually we did it with only the one phone call to Relate.
The seat cushion looks like new now so the job was a success.
The upshot of all this is that if you do happen to stain or otherwise mark a cushion cover then it is possible to remove it and wash it.
It is fiddly and not something I would want to do every day but it is possible.
Ian
No comments:
Post a Comment