Table of Contents
The short answer
Every blind and shutter is cleaned in the same two stages. First the dust comes off dry, with a microfibre cloth or the soft brush of a vacuum cleaner. Then you use only as much moisture as the material tolerates. Aluminium and PVC slats take a well-wrung damp cloth. Real wood and painted shutters take a cloth that is barely damp, and are dried at once. Most fabrics, honeycomb blinds and anything with a motor in it are kept as dry as possible. Nothing is soaked, nothing is sprayed into the headrail, and the blinds are done before the glass and the floor, because that is where the dust lands.
The order matters more than the product. Dry dust lifts off. Wetted dust becomes a grey paste that smears into the weave of a fabric or the grain of a slat, and it is harder to remove than the dust was. Most blinds that looked worse after cleaning were wetted before they were dusted.
IHR Dream Cleaning does not publish a separate blinds-cleaning service or price. If you would like the blinds dealt with during a home clean or a window cleaning visit, name them when you book: the type, the material and how many there are. What can be done is then confirmed before the day. The table gives the limits for each type, and the sections below explain them.
| Type | Dry dusting | Moisture | Never |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminium venetian | Cloth or vacuum brush | Damp cloth, then a dry one | Bending a slat; abrasive pads |
| Real wood venetian | Soft cloth, slat by slat | Barely damp at most, dried at once | Soaking, steam, spray cleaners |
| Faux wood and PVC venetian | Cloth or vacuum brush | Damp cloth with mild soap | Solvents, hot water, heat |
| Vertical fabric | Vacuum brush, downwards | Blot spots only, unless labelled washable | Rubbing; soaking stiffened fabric |
| Roller | Vacuum brush or dry cloth, fully lowered | Light wipe on wipeable fabrics | Rolling it up damp |
| Roman | Vacuum brush along each fold | Blot spots; follow the care label | Washing with the rods in |
| Honeycomb | Low suction; cool air through the cells | Dab only | Crushing the pleats; soaking |
| Plantation shutters | Cloth or soft brush, louvre by louvre | Barely damp on wood, damp on PVC | Forcing the tilt rod |
| Motorised blinds | As for the slat or fabric | As for the material, away from the headrail | Liquid near the motor or battery |
Why blinds get dirty so quickly here
A venetian blind is a stack of narrow shelves, and a home in Abu Dhabi supplies plenty to put on them. Fine dust comes in each time a door opens and after every windy day. The air conditioning runs for most of the year with the windows shut, so the same air goes round the room again and again and drops what it carries on the first flat surface it meets. A blind hanging near a supply grille collects it fastest.
Plastic and painted slats also hold a static charge, which pulls dust towards them. It is why a PVC blind can look grey again a few days after it was wiped, and why a slightly damp final wipe keeps it clean for longer than a dry one.
Three kinds of window add something of their own.
- Kitchen windows. Cooking vapour settles as a thin film of grease, and dust sticks to it. A kitchen blind needs degreasing, not dusting. The film is the same one described in how to degrease a kitchen.
- Bathrooms, and bedrooms with cold glass. The AC keeps the pane cool, and in the humid months moisture condenses on it. A fabric blind that rests against damp glass grows dark spots along its lower edge.
- Sunny windows. Strong sun through the glass fades fabric and, over the years, yellows white PVC and makes it brittle. Neither is dirt, and neither washes out. An old blind on a west-facing window needs a lighter hand than a new one.
Before you start: know the material and gather the kit
Ten minutes of preparation prevents most damage. There are two things to settle: what the blind is made of, and what you will allow to touch it.
Working out what the blind is made of
Look first for the maker's label. It is usually on the headrail, the bottom bar or the back of the lowest slat, and its care instructions outrank any general guide, this one included. If there is no label, the blind will tell you itself.
- Aluminium slats are thin, cool to the touch and slightly curved across their width. They spring back from a gentle bend and crease for good if folded.
- Real wood is light for its size. The grain differs from slat to slat, and the cut ends show it.
- Faux wood is PVC or a composite. It is noticeably heavier, the grain pattern repeats, and the ends look the same all the way through.
- Stiffened roller and vertical fabric feels closer to thin card than to cloth. Blackout fabric has a smooth coating on the back. Screen fabric is an open, plastic-coated weave that lets daylight through.
- Shutters are painted hardwood, painted MDF or PVC. If nothing says which, treat them as painted wood, which is the cautious assumption.
Test before you wipe
Whatever the material, try your cloth and your cleaning water on a part nobody sees: the back of the bottom slat, or the lowest corner of the fabric. Wipe it, let it dry fully and look at it in daylight. If colour came off on the cloth, if the patch dried dull or pale, or if a ring formed round it, then for you that blind is a dry-dust-only blind.
What to have ready
Nothing here is specialised. The point is to have enough clean cloths, because a cloth that has done six slats is putting grey back on the seventh.
- Six or more clean, dry microfibre cloths.
- A vacuum cleaner with a soft brush head, set to its lowest suction.
- A clean, soft paintbrush for cord holes, corners and the pivots of shutter louvres.
- A bowl of lukewarm water with a drop of washing-up liquid, a second bowl of plain water, and a cloth for each.
- An old towel or dust sheet for the sill and the floor below.
- A step ladder on a firm, level floor if the headrail is above shoulder height.
What to keep away from every blind
The list of things that damage blinds is longer than the list of things that clean them. Never mix cleaning products, either. Bleach combined with an acid cleaner or with ammonia gives off a toxic gas, and a closed, air-conditioned room is the worst place to find that out.
- Bleach and ammonia cleaners. They discolour fabric, attack coatings and weaken cords.
- Abrasive pads, cream cleaners and scouring powders. They scratch paint and the lacquer on aluminium, and a scratched slat holds dirt.
- Solvents and strong degreasers on PVC, paint or printed fabric.
- Steam on wood, on glued hems, on blackout coatings and on honeycomb fabric. Heat and moisture together loosen glue and warp slats.
- Hot water and hairdryers on their hot setting. PVC softens and bows with heat.
- Spray polish, unless the maker recommends one. It leaves a film that dust sticks to.
- A cleaner sprayed straight onto the blind. Put it on the cloth, so that none runs into the headrail or down the cords.
The dry dusting that every type starts with
This is the routine clean, and for wood, most fabrics and motorised blinds it is close to the whole clean. Done every week or two, it means the damp stage is rarely needed.
- Clear the sill, move furniture back and lay a towel below the window.
- Lower the blind fully. On a slatted blind, tilt the slats until they lie almost flat, facing down.
- Start at the top. Wipe the headrail first, because dust falls, and whatever is on the headrail will come down onto finished slats.
- Wipe each slat from the middle outwards to each end. Hold your other hand behind the slat so that it does not bend, and work down the blind.
- Tilt the slats the other way and repeat. Each slat has two faces, and the one you could not see holds as much dust as the one you could.
- Set the slats level and run the paintbrush down the cords or tapes and through the cord holes, where dust packs into a felt.
- Vacuum the sill, the track and the floor below. Only now is the glass worth cleaning.
Cloth, duster or vacuum
A dry microfibre cloth holds dust. A feather duster flicks it into the air, where it settles on the next slat and on the furniture. If you prefer a duster, choose one that can be washed, and wash it.
The vacuum brush is the quickest tool on fabric and on textured slats. Keep the suction low, or light slats and loose fabric are pulled into the nozzle and creased. On fabric, hold a flat hand behind the part you are vacuuming and move the brush in straight lines, without scrubbing.
Slatted blinds: aluminium, wood and faux wood
All three look alike from across a room and behave very differently under a wet cloth.
Aluminium venetian blinds
Aluminium does not mind water. What it minds is force. The slats are thin, and a slat that has been creased by a thumb or pulled down by a hand stays creased. Support each one from behind and let the cloth do the work.
After dusting, wipe each slat with a cloth wrung out in the soapy water, then straight away with a dry one. The drying is not optional here. Abu Dhabi's tap water is very hard, and water left to dry on a slat leaves a white spot of limescale. For greasy kitchen slats, go over them twice with the soapy cloth, then once with a cloth wrung out in plain water, then dry.
Some guides suggest taking the blind down and soaking it in the bath. The slats would survive. The headrail is the problem: it holds the steel tilt gear and the cord lock, and the ladder cords that carry the slats are woven and can shrink or dry stiff. If a blind is dirty enough to need a bath, wipe it slat by slat where it hangs, or weigh the hours against the price of a new one.
Real wood venetian blinds
Wood takes in water, swells, and does not always go back. A slat that has been wetted can warp, lose its finish or dry with a pale water mark. Dry dusting is the clean for wooden blinds, and it is enough if it is regular.
For a mark that dusting leaves behind, wring a cloth until it feels almost dry, wipe along the grain and dry the slat immediately. No soaking, no steam and no spray. Do not leave a wooden blind closed against a window that runs with condensation, and think twice about real wood in a bathroom or over a kitchen sink at all. On the sunny side of the house the finish may already be dry and fragile, so use less pressure there.
Faux wood and PVC venetian blinds
These were made for damp rooms, and they tolerate a damp cloth and mild soap well. Wipe, rinse-wipe and dry as for aluminium. The slats are heavy, so raise and lower the blind slowly and do not let its weight hang from a single cord while you work.
Their weakness is heat. Hot water, a hairdryer or steam can soften a PVC slat until it bows, and it sets in the new shape. Use lukewarm water only. Yellowing on an old white blind is the plastic ageing in the sun. It is all the way through the slat, and no cleaner brings the white back. Old slats can also be brittle, which is one more reason to support each one from behind.
Fabric blinds: vertical, roller, roman and honeycomb
Fabric blinds are mostly kept clean by vacuuming. Water is for single marks, used sparingly, and only after the test described above.
Vertical blinds
Each vane hangs from a clip in the headrail and is weighted at the bottom, with a light chain linking the weights. Close the vanes so they overlap flat, hold the bottom of one taut with one hand and run the vacuum brush or a dry cloth down it with the other. Always stroke downwards. An upward stroke can lift the vane off its clip. Then turn the vanes and do the other face.
Fabric vanes are stiffened so that they hang straight. Rubbing a mark breaks the stiffening and leaves a soft, fuzzy patch that is paler than the fabric round it. Blot it with a barely damp cloth and a trace of soap, then blot it dry. Some fabric vanes are sold as washable. Wash them only if the label says so and in the way the label says, with the weights and chain taken off first, and hang them back straight to dry. Any other vane that is soaked loses its stiffening, curls and frays at the edges.
PVC vanes are wiped like PVC slats. Brush the headrail track dry, and do not oil or spray inside it. Oil holds dust, and dust is what makes the carriers stick.
Roller blinds
Lower the blind all the way, so that you clean the whole length and not only the part that is usually on show. Vacuum or wipe both faces from top to bottom with a flat hand behind the fabric. The lowest part and the bottom bar are handled every day, so that is where finger marks collect.
Fabrics that are made to be wiped, such as coated screen fabric and many blackout fabrics, take a light pass with a damp cloth and mild soap, followed by a dry cloth. Do not scrub, and do not fold or crease a blackout blind, because the coating on its back cracks along the fold. Plain polyester that lets light through is less forgiving. Water can leave a ring, so dab a mark from its outside edge towards the middle and stop if the ring spreads.
Then leave the blind fully down until it is dry all the way through. A roller blind that is rolled up damp marks itself, sticks to itself and can grow mould inside the roll, where nobody looks until the smell arrives. Wipe the chain and the bottom bar, and keep water and oil away from the mechanism at the end of the tube. Trim a frayed edge with scissors. Pulling the thread makes it run.
Roman blinds
A roman blind is a piece of curtain fabric, often lined, with rods or battens across the back and cords running through rings. Dust settles along every fold. Lower it fully and take the vacuum brush along each fold line on the front, then do the lining at the back. Blot marks. Do not rub them.
Washing one is a job to check, not to assume. It is possible only where the care label allows it, and then the rods, battens and cords come out first, with a photograph taken of how the cords were threaded. Many lined romans are dry-clean only. The fabric raises the same questions as a curtain, which are worked through in on-site steam or take-down washing for curtains.
Our curtain cleaning is done on site with steam, at AED 30 for a standard panel. A blind is not a curtain panel, so send a photo and ask when you book, and we confirm whether and how it can be cleaned.
Honeycomb blinds
Honeycomb, or cellular, blinds are made of thin fabric bonded into rows of cells. They insulate well, and the cells also collect dust and the occasional insect. Vacuum along the pleats, from side to side, on the lowest suction. To clear the inside of the cells, blow through them from one end with a hairdryer on its cool setting.
Keep water to a dab on a single mark. The cells are held together with lines of adhesive that do not like being wetted, the fabric pills if it is rubbed, and blackout versions have a foil lining inside the cell that creases for good. Never press the pleats flat to clean them.
Shutters: indoors and out
Plantation shutters
A shutter panel has more ledges than a blind: the top of the panel, the frame, each louvre, and the pivot where each louvre meets the side of the panel. Close the louvres downwards and wipe them, close them upwards and wipe again, then dust the frame and the top edge. The paintbrush clears the pivots, which a cloth cannot reach.
PVC shutters take a damp cloth. Painted wood and painted MDF take a barely damp one and are dried at once. MDF needs particular care wherever the paint is chipped, because water that gets into the board through a chip swells it, and the swelling does not go down.
Move the louvres by the tilt rod, or with a flat hand across several louvres if the rod is hidden. Do not pull on one louvre, and do not rest a cloth or an arm on the rod. The small staples that join it to the louvres pull out easily. Wipe hinges and magnetic catches dry. Louvres that have gone slack and will not hold their angle can usually be tightened at a tension screw on the side of the panel, and the maker's instructions will show where it is.
Outdoor louvres and roller shutters
Aluminium roller shutters and fixed louvres on a villa hold a season of dust, and on the coast a film of salt as well. Brush them dry from the top with a soft broom or brush. Then wipe them with soapy water and a soft cloth, or rinse them with a gentle flow from a hose, and brush out the side guide channels where grit collects. Do it before the windows behind them are cleaned.
Do not use a pressure washer. The jet dents thin slats, drives grit into the guides and forces water into the box at the top, which on a motorised shutter is where the motor and its controls sit. Stay on the ground or on a step ladder on firm paving. Shutters on upper floors are not a household job, and where that line falls is set out in what a cleaning team can safely reach.
Motors, cords and height
Three things about blinds can hurt people or cost real money: the electrics, the cords and the climb.
Motorised blinds
The motor sits inside the roller tube or the headrail. It runs from the mains, from a rechargeable battery or from a battery pack clipped behind the headrail, and there may be a receiver for the remote control beside it. Treat the whole top of the blind as an electrical fitting. Dust it dry, and never spray it or wipe it with a wet cloth.
Clean the fabric or the slats as their material allows, and keep the damp cloth well below the headrail. Raise and lower the blind with its own control. Pulling a motorised blind down by hand strains the motor and can upset its stop positions. Lower it, then put the remote out of reach so that nobody raises the blind while your hands are in it.
If a motorised blind has started to run unevenly, make a new noise or stop short, that is a matter for whoever installed it. Do not open the headrail.
Cords, chains and children
A looped cord or chain at a window can strangle a small child, and it happens quickly and silently. Cleaning is when cords get unwound, untied and left hanging, so finishing the job includes putting them back.
- Wind loose cords onto a cleat fixed high on the wall, out of a child's reach.
- Keep a chain loop taut in a tensioner that is screwed to the wall or the frame.
- Do not knot two cords together. A knot turns two ends into a loop.
- Keep cots, beds, sofas and anything else that can be climbed away from windows with cords.
- Look along the lift cords while the blind is down. A frayed cord can part and drop the blind, so have it restrung by a blind supplier before that happens.
Blinds above arm's reach
Use a step ladder on a dry, level floor, and move it along the window instead of leaning sideways from it. A window sill, the arm of a sofa and a dining chair are not ladders. Blinds on a double-height window or over a staircase are beyond a step ladder, and they are best left to a company with access equipment.
The same limit applies to a cleaning visit. The materials our teams carry include a step ladder, and tall ladders and scaffolding are not part of them. A blind above that height should be described, with a photo, when you book, so that what can be done is confirmed beforehand.
Marks that dusting does not shift
Some marks respond to patience and a damp cloth. Others are changes in the material itself, and it saves time to know which is which.
| Mark | Where it appears | What to try | When to stop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grease film | Slats and fabric near the hob | Soapy cloth twice, plain water once, then dry | On fabric, when blotting no longer lifts anything |
| Dark mould spots | Bathroom blinds; fabric against cold glass | On hard slats, soapy water, then dry and air the room | When the spots go through the fabric or sit inside honeycomb cells |
| Yellowing | White PVC and old fabric in strong sun | Nothing removes it | Straight away: it is the material ageing |
| Water rings | Roller and roman fabric | Dab from the outside in, then dry | If the ring grows |
| Insect specks | Any blind near an open window | Soften with a damp dab and lift off | Before you are tempted to scrape |
When to replace instead of clean
Some blinds are past cleaning. Slats that snap when they are flexed, fabric that tears as it is handled, a blackout coating that flakes off on the cloth, mould that has grown through the cloth and cords that have frayed are all signs of a blind at the end of its life. A creased aluminium slat does not straighten, although a blind supplier can sometimes replace single slats.
Put a figure on the time as well. Wiping a large venetian slat by slat, both faces, is slow. On an hourly visit the cost of one more hour is the gap between two lines of the price list: going from three hours to four adds AED 30 for one cleaner. Compare that, multiplied by the hours a house full of old blinds would take, with the price of new ones.
A blind that has come away from the wall is a fixing job, not a cleaning one. Our handyman service installs wall-mounted fittings such as shelves, mirrors and curtain rails, and is quoted free from photos. Send a picture of the bracket and the wall, and the job is confirmed before anyone comes.
How often, and where blinds come in the order of a room
A light dry dusting every week or two keeps most blinds from ever needing more. Give slatted blinds a full wipe of both faces every two or three months, and kitchen blinds about once a month, before the grease film hardens. After a dusty spell, do the blinds as part of the first clean, not the second, because every movement of a dusty blind sheds onto the sill and the glass. How the rest of the home fits round that rhythm is set out in how often a home in Abu Dhabi should be cleaned.
Within a room, work from high to low and from dry to wet: blinds and shutters first, then frames and tracks, then the glass, then the sill, then the floor. Glass cleaned before the blinds is glass cleaned twice. The method for the glass itself, and what must never touch tinted or coated panes, is in what professionals use for streak-free windows.
Asking a cleaning team to do the blinds
Our site mentions blinds in three places, and none of them is a priced blinds service. The window cleaning page asks you to tell us about blinds or curtains that need moving. The curtain cleaning page answers the question of whether blinds can be cleaned with: ask when you book, send a photo, and we confirm whether and how. And our deep cleaning guide lists dusting and light cleaning of curtains and blinds among the living-room tasks. So the rule is to say it when you book, and not to assume it on the day.
- The type and the material in each room, and the care label if there is one.
- How many there are, and roughly how big.
- What is on them: house dust, kitchen grease or mould spots.
- Any that are above step-ladder height.
- Any that are motorised.
- Anything fragile. Our terms ask customers to tell us about fragile surfaces and specialist materials, raw wood among them, before work begins. Brittle old slats belong on that list.
Time, price and materials
Home cleaning and window cleaning are both priced by the length of the visit: AED 55 for 1 hour, AED 65 for 2 hours, AED 30 an hour for 3–4 hours and AED 25 for each hour after that, per cleaner, with VAT included. A two-hour visit by one cleaner is AED 65 and a three-hour visit is AED 90. The figure for every length is on the price list. An hourly visit is yours to direct, but slat-by-slat wiping takes time, and a house full of venetians will not fit into the last twenty minutes of a short clean. Ask how much time to allow.
Booked without materials, the team uses what is in the home, so the cloths, the vacuum cleaner and the step ladder must be yours. With materials, at AED 5 more per cleaner-hour, they come with the team. The two options are compared in cleaning with or without materials. If the work needs longer on the day, the team leader asks you first, and the visit is extended in 30-minute steps only with your approval.
What to look at before the team leaves
Tilt each slatted blind both ways with the daylight behind it, which shows a missed face at once. Check that damp-wiped fabric blinds have been left down to dry, and that every cord is back on its cleat. If a point was missed, say so before the team goes, or tell us within 24 hours of the visit.
Common questions
Can blinds be steam cleaned?
As a rule, no. Aluminium does not need steam, PVC can warp in it, wood swells, and the glue in hems, honeycomb cells and blackout coatings loosens. The exception is a fabric whose maker says it can be steamed, which is more often true of a roman blind made of curtain fabric than of anything stiffened or coated.
Can a roller blind go in the washing machine or the bath?
Not the machine. The drum creases stiffened fabric, the creases do not come out, and coated fabric cracks. A bath is possible only for a fabric the maker describes as washable, taken off its tube, and it then has to dry perfectly flat. For most roller blinds a wipe in place does less harm and takes less time.
Do blinds need to be taken down to be cleaned properly?
No. Every method in this guide is done with the blind hanging, and that is the safer way: the brackets stay undisturbed, the cords stay threaded and nothing is bent in the carrying. Taking a blind off the wall and refitting it is a fitting job as much as a cleaning one. Do not assume that a cleaner will do it. Ask when you book.
What is ultrasonic blind cleaning?
It is a workshop method used by some blind specialists. The blind is taken down and lowered into a tank of cleaning solution, and sound waves shake the dirt off every surface, the cords and the inside of the headrail included. It suits aluminium and PVC and some fabrics, and it does not suit wood. It is not a service we publish. If you use a workshop that offers it, ask whether your blind's material, cords and mechanism are suitable for immersion before it leaves the house.
Why are the blinds dusty again within days?
Usually for one of three reasons. Static on plastic slats pulls dust back, and a final wipe with a slightly damp cloth reduces it. The sill and the track below were not vacuumed, so each movement of the blind stirs the same dust up again. Or the room itself is dusty: a clogged AC filter and a gap under a balcony door both feed a blind faster than anyone can dust it.
How are blinds sealed between two panes of glass cleaned?
They are not. A blind inside a sealed double-glazed unit sits in a closed space that dust cannot reach, and the unit must not be opened. Clean the glass on both faces as usual. If the blind looks dirty or misted, the seal of the unit has failed, and that is a question for a glazing company.
Should the blinds be done before or after the windows?
Before. Dust knocked off a blind lands on the glass, the sill and the track. If the glass is still wet when it lands, the dust sticks and the pane has to be done again.
Booking help with the windows and what hangs in front of them
Clean glass behind dusty blinds does not stay clean, and dusted blinds in front of dirty glass do not look it. The two belong in one visit, done in the right order.
A window cleaning visit covers the inside of every window, the glass doors and the mirrors, the frames, sills and tracks, and the outside of the glass wherever it can be reached safely from inside, from a balcony or from a step ladder. Name the blinds when you book online, with their type and material, and we confirm what can be done with them before the visit. We work every day from 8 AM – 8 PM. The price is shown before you confirm, and you pay by card once we confirm your booking.
