Q: I need to remove thick wax buildup from some wooden chairs. I could scrape it off, but I have 10 chairs to do. Is there a product that will dissolve the wax?
Davidsonville
A: Most petroleum distillates — a category that includes toluene, mineral spirits and naphtha — dissolve wax.
Furniture wax products usually contain a combination of waxes, so there is no one best solvent. But naphtha typically works the fastest, and it has the advantage of helping you see when all of the wax is off. However, if you already have odorless mineral spirits, use that rather than buying something new. You’ll just need to rub more.
There are also many branded products that remove wax buildup. If you check the safety information for these products, though, you will discover that they’re mostly just the generic solvents. For example, Formby’s Deep Cleansing Build-Up Remover is 94 percent mineral spirits and 5 percent paraffin oil.
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All petroleum solvents are hazardous, although naphtha and odorless mineral spirits are less so than some others, including toluene and xylene. (The label “odorless” regarding mineral spirits doesn’t just mean it’s less smelly; it’s also less toxic because it has been stripped of aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene, which make up about 15 to 20 percent of regular mineral spirits.)
Work outside, if possible, or wear a half-face respirator fitted with organic vapor cartridges. Protect your eyes, and wear solvent-resistant gloves — not thin disposables, but thicker ones. Nitrile is better at standing up to naphtha and mineral spirits than some other glove materials. Make sure no flames, including pilot lights and lit cigarettes, are anywhere nearby.
Moisten part of a clean cloth with the solvent. Wipe it on, and it should pick up a load of the wax. Repeat, frequently folding the cloth to expose clean sections. You may need to go over each part of the chair several times to remove all of the wax. If you are using naphtha, if the surface looks wet when you wipe on the solvent, some wax remains. When the naphtha evaporates instantly, all of the wax is gone.
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The new stair runner at our vacation home is stained. I don’t know what the stain is or how it got there. I’ve tried soap and water and a soft toothbrush, to no avail. I also tried Spot Shot Instant Carpet Stain Remover, which has worked miracles for me in the past. The carpet is Dash & Albert’s Cut Stripe Ocean Hand Knotted Rug. I just saw on the Dash & Albert website that this carpet is best suited for low-traffic, gently used rooms. Not sure why my decorator thought it would be appropriate for stairs. It looks fantastic other than the two spots. Any advice?
You’re right. The Dash & Albert website says this rug is made of viscose and wool, and the site clearly states: “The delicate fibers of viscose-blend rugs are best suited for low-traffic, gently used rooms only. Not suitable for homes with children and pets.”
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Nicole Adams, product development supervisor for Dash & Albert, said the base of your rug is 100 percent wool and the decorative raised pile is viscose, a fiber manufactured from cellulose. Viscose is lustrous, so in the rug world it’s often called man-made silk. (When used in clothing, viscose is often called rayon.)
If you scroll around on the Web, you will find numerous comments about how unsuitable viscose is for use in rugs that people want to walk on and enjoy for a long time. "It's a nice fiber, but nice doesn't mean it's durable," said Dan Ayoub, owner of Ayoub Carpet Service, a rug and carpet-cleaning company with offices in Chantilly and Falls Church (703-255-6000; rugcare.com). Viscose fibers are brittle, so over time they break off and get distorted, leaving heavy-use areas looking like a cat scratched them, he said.
And viscose stains easily. “Any liquid — even water — can cause permanent staining,” Adams said. “As much as people love the look and feel of viscose, these carpets are meant for places where they don’t get much use.”
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Adams looked at the picture you sent and noted that the stains appear solely in the viscose, not the wool base. “From my experience, it looks like the rug has either been stained (and then someone tried to do a little spot cleaning) or simply gotten wet, which has discolored that section of the viscose,” Adams wrote in an email after seeing the picture. “Unfortunately, this discoloration may be permanent, but I would leave that decision up to a professional carpet cleaner.”
Ayoub, who also concluded that your picture shows stains confined to the viscose, had little to recommend other than a variation on what you’ve already tried. He suggested mixing one cup of lukewarm water and a few drops of Woolite and blotting it onto a small area with a clean white cloth, using an up and down motion, not circular scrubbing. If some of the color transfers to the cloth, keep going. Then, to neutralize alkalinity in the soap, he suggested spritzing lightly with a solution made of two tablespoons of white vinegar in a cup of water. Blot that with a clean, dry cloth, or, better yet, he said, use a shop vacuum to extract as much of the water as possible.
One of the few rug-cleaning companies that advertise their ability to clean viscose rugs is Revita Rugs in South Hackensack, N.J. (855-573-8482; revitarugs.com). The company offers free pickup and delivery in the Washington area. Owner Hamid Zarei said the company is able to clean carpets with viscose, as well as those with silk, wool and other fibers, because it uses soft water and special soaps and has a process that gets the fibers dry in about 15 minutes. The cost for a carpet with viscose is $6 per square foot, so cleaning a runner about 3 feet wide and 20 feet long would cost $360. (Cleaning wool carpets costs $5, and those made of most other fibers are $3.75.) The cleaning removes stains about 90 percent of the time, Zarei said. In the other 10 percent of cases, additional stain-removal treatment is needed, at an additional cost. Unfortunately, he said, there is no way to predict that until the first cleaning is done.
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Revita also offers a stain-protection treatment that Zarei said would make it easier to remove future spills without staining. That costs $5 a square foot, with a 50 percent discount when preceded by a cleaning.
Have a problem in your home? Send questions to localliving@washpost.com . Put "How To" in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo.
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