Simple guide to keeping curtains clean

Curtains are the unsung heroes of the home furnishings world. Day in and out, they stand sentinel against the ravages of summer sun and winter draughts. And, they form an integral part of the home's airflow system, filtering dust out of air that blows in and out of windows. You owe it to your curtains, not to mention your lungs, to keep them clean and dust free.

• Make this part of a regular household dusting.
• There's no need to take them down. (Who has the time to do that every month?)
• Instead, dust them where they hang using your vacuum cleaner with a dusting brush or an upholstery attachment.
• Use an extension tube to reach the tops.
• If you don't have the right vacuum attachments, the tried-and-true cleaning implement, the feather duster, will suffice.

• First, look for the manufacturer's cleaning recommendations, which should be on a tag sewn inside the hem.
• If there is no tag, try to decide what sort of treatment the fabric gets. Depending on the material, machine wash, hand wash or dry clean them.

• Put them in the washing machine on the delicate cycle. They may look sturdy, but being continually exposed to the sun can weaken curtains by breaking down the fibres in the material. Consequently, the minute you wash them, they may begin to deteriorate.
• Likewise, be gentle when drying curtains in a machine. If you have one, use the permanent press setting on your dryer; it has a cool-down feature that will help prevent wrinkles.
• High heat from a dryer can set wrinkles in the fabric, especially when the cycle ends abruptly and leaves the curtains in a ball.
• An alternative to tumbling curtains until they are dry is to remove them from the dryer and hang them while they are still damp. This will reduce wrinkling and may even help you avoid having to iron them.
• If your curtains are not very dirty, skip the washing altogether and freshen them by tumbling them in a dryer using no heat.

• Make sure that you find the best place for the job. Most neighbourhood dry cleaners don't have the special knowledge or equipment to handle curtains. Find one that does.
• Some cleaners will even measure your curtains beforehand and guarantee that they will come back the same length, which is important.