I tried using the hand held tool on a sofa and was embarassed that it did not seem to take out any of the soil on the upholstery at all. Is there anything I can do to make the hand held work better? I used PLENTY of the Outsolve and worked on it for the better part of an hour with no results. Any recommendations?

Hello,Ashley you can get a horsehair brush and use a encapulation product.I clean using atomic and horsehair brush,I hand clean with bonnet and comes out pretty good.I also use a duramaid spotter and scrub in chem and exstract, I get great results. sorry for bad spelling.

Now and then you'll run into an item of upholstered furniture that just refuses to "shape up". Anticipating such an occasional event, I always tell the customer that, after the piece has dried (it can be difficult to see for sure what you've actually accomplished while the fabric is still wet) that if he/she is disappointed in the results, they can either adjust the price you have billed them, or take the item off the bill altogether. I've never touted the stair tool as the perfect upholstery cleaning tool. It is very useful on many pieces. However, if you want to bat closer to 1.000 on upholstery, you might want to invest in a small portable HWE machine.
While I don't use one, I realize that I am in the minority in this area.