Cleaning Comparisons

First off, I would like to add that we had not been in the apartment in almost a month since we had bought a house but still had to finish out the last 60 days. We were growing potatoes...most exciting part of the cleaning...

The Dirty Burners

I have a few pins that I tested out on this cleaning venture. The very first pin was kind of a fail. The picture of the pin says "The no scrub way to clean your burners"...I still had to scrub a bunch! It was terrible.

Supplies Needed:
Dirty Burners
Ammonia
Ziplock bags

Supplies

First you place the burners in the bag with about 1/4 cup ammonia. I placed the bags in the sink in case they leaked. Leave overnight or 8 hours.

The next morning you will see some of the grease has come off and the ammonia is a gross color. After much SCRUBBING, I was able to the the burner cleaned. The pin might work if you clean your burners more often than we did at the apartment.

Next came the stove. I compared this pin which recommends baking soda and vinegar, against store brand oven cleaner, as well as baking soda with peroxide. I used the store brand cleaner in the oven, the vinegar mix under the top of the stove - where the crumbs fall, and the peroxide on the top of the stove. I left them over night, mainly cuz the oven cleaner required 8 hours and I had to go to work.

 The first pic is the oven with the cleaner which caked on after the hours went by. The second pic is the middle with the vinegar - you  can see the reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. The top is the baking soda and peroxide - which has no chemical reaction.

 The oven cleaner was fairly easy to scrub off and seamed to work, but when using it, I needed GLOVES and a MASK, the fumes are horrible, I'm glad my pets weren't there during this.


The peroxide did nothing really. For EASE OF CLEANING, its a tie between the cleaner (left) and the vinegar (right). For SAFETY, the winner is definitely the vinegar, by far! The cleaner can burn your skin and burns your lungs when using it, its way harsh! Plus I don't like the idea of cooking with the possibility of harmful residue still in the oven.

 Since the vinegar worked so well, I decided to use it on the burner pans for the stove. I only left it for about 15 minutes so I still had some scrubbing, but with the pic on the right, you can see the "before and after".

 



For the last pin with pictures, the DREADED MICROWAVE!!! Place a microwave safe container with 1c water and 1c vinegar inside and set to 10 minutes. 

This one worked, but I think it would have worked with just water since it just needs the moisture, but I guess the vinegar helps with germs. Now be cautious when doing this. around 6 minutes the liquid turned into a rocket and shot out of the cup and into the side, the steam fogged up the display. I was worried it would leave moisture, but it went away after about a minute.

Now, I tried a few more pins and cleaning tips. This pin has your place a paper towel soaked in vinegar around that build up around the sink faucet. I tried it and it did seem to make clean up easier. I also found that magic erasers are AMAZING! I had wasted an hour scrubbing the walls a week prior, then I went thru with the magic erasers and the walls are pretty much perfect. Another pin said to soak the cotton coals for perming hair in bleach and place around the tub corners to get rid of the mildew/mold that builds up. I was pressed for time and just used paper towels. It worked, but I think the coils for work better. I might try vinegar and baking soda next time I have that issue. Can you tell I'm loving the BS/Vinegar..its pretty great. Oh, I forgot, since we left potatoes in the cuboard, tsome became really gross and left the shelf black, I used baking soda and peroxide and it helped lighten the stain a bunch. :)