Hotel Guestroom Drapery Cleaning + Flameproofing - Same-Day Turnaround With No Rooms Out of Service
Facility: Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, Wisconsin
Service Provider: On-Site Drapery Cleaners
Scope: Guestroom blackout curtain take-down / non-immersion deep cleaning / rehang / flame-retardant application and fire-code certification.
The Problem
A 500 room high-occupancy Casino Hotel needed to deep clean guestroom drapery and blackout curtains to improve room freshness and reduce odor/allergen issues—without losing revenue by taking rooms out of service. The property also needed drapery to remain fire-code compliant, which required flameproofing after cleaning and updated certification.
Key Constraints
- No downtime: Rooms needed to stay in service with minimal disruption to guests and housekeeping.
- Fast cycle time: Drapery had to be taken down, deep cleaned, and rehung quickly—typically within about 2.5 hours per guestroom—so room inventory stayed online.
- Blackout liner risk: Traditional wet/immersion cleaning can crack blackout lining and create holes, leading to premature replacements.
- Finish quality: Avoid shrinkage, fading, distortion, and fabric damage.
- Large capacity: With over 500 rooms to clean, over 1,500 drapery panels in total, the ability to complete high volumes each day was critical.
- Compliance requirements: Gaming Commission required company to obtain complete background checks on all staff, plus a Class C Gaming Vendor license, company registration as a non-gaming vendor.
- Drapery was required to be re-flameproofed after cleaning to maintain fire code compliance.
What On-Site Delivered
1) Controlled Scope + Hotel-Aware Sequencing
- Developed Project Scope for Competitive Bidding.
- Planned a floor-by-floor workflow aligned to occupancy and housekeeping patterns.
- Sequenced rooms to minimize guest impact and keep a steady flow of completed rooms back into service.
- On-site service model presented considerable advantages of alternate vendor who proposed removing all drapery, brining to Chicago for cleaning & re-treatment which would result in a month of lost room sales for property.
2) Same-Day Execution Model (No Rooms Out of Service)
- Take-down → deep clean → rehang performed in rapid cycles per room to maintain revenue-generating inventory.
- On-Site - Mobile Cleaning Unit parked at Hotel Loading Dock.
- High-throughput equipment and full staffing complement designed for hospitality scale (not a low-output vacuuming)
3) Blackout-Safe, Non-Immersion Deep Cleaning
- Used On-Site’s proprietary non-immersion cleaning process purpose-built for hotel blackout curtains to protect liners and fabric integrity.
- Cleaning method avoids the common damage associated with liquid immersion (liner cracking, pinholes, fading, shrinkage or fabric distortion).
4) Flameproofing After Cleaning + Inspector-Ready Documentation
- Re-applied flame retardant after cleaning to maintain fire-code certification.
- Certification of Flame Retardant Application & Testing provided to hotel ready for Inspection.
Timeline (Milestones)
- October: Detailed project assessment completed including developing scope of work and project scope for competitive bidding.
- May: Scope confirmation, room-block sequencing, and coordination with hotel operations.
- June: Same-day execution by floor/zone with rapid room cycles and immediate return-to-service. 14 floors cleaned and flameproofed.
- July: Certification of Flame Retardant Application & Testing provided to hotel.
Results
- High Volume Production: Completed cleaning of 2 entire floors of drapery per day for all 14 floors, total of 1,594 drapery panels, cleaning over 288 drapery panels per day.
- Deep-cleaned guestroom drapery and blackout curtains Same Day resulting in No Lost Revenue for hotel.
- No damage to blackout curtains.
- Improved room freshness by reducing odors and allergen load.
- Re-applied flame retardant after cleaning to ensure fire code compliance and enhanced fire safety.
