the period of time between cleaning is too long too much soil will fill the felt applying the cleaning chemical operation at least once per hour causes a cumulative effect on the felt providing significant cleaning for the felt the cleaning solution used in the present invention can be any cleaning solution typically employed to clean papermaking felt depending upon the chemistry of the particular equipment these cleaning compositions can be alkaline acid anionic or nonionic therefore one will select one or more cleaning compositions based on the particular papermaking operation generally they will include in addition to surfactants and the requisite acid or base wetting agents chelants and sequestrants exemplary formulations for both acid and alkaline cleaning compositions are set out below parts by weight the chemical compositions are generally added at about 200 to 600 ppm on a 100 actives basis the detergent compositions themselves however are generally diluted and contain about 15 20 actives since the total amount of soil which is deposited within a press fabric is basically proportional to the felt area and since all press fabrics on a given machine are the same width differing by their length then the amount of press felt cleaner for each press felt can optimally by applied in proportion to the fabric 39 s length to achieve the same degree of cleanliness it is best to adjust the concentration of the detergent applied to each felt based upon relative length.