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How to Care for Acrylic Flooring

April 30, 2013 By 1 Comment

Heather says:

Not too long ago on Facebook, I got a question about acrylic flooring that had become cloudy.

First I want to note that acrylic is a broad chemical term that simply means made of polymers or resins. So acrylic flooring can come in many forms, but in general people either mean linoleum,  laminate, or Pergo style flooring. (Linoleum, laminate, say that five times fast)

The basic care is the same for all of these flooring types since they are made of similar, although not identical, material.

Cloudy or dull finishes on acrylic flooring is caused by tiny nicks and scratches that get filled with dirt, over time. You ask where do the nicks and scratches in my linoleum come from? Outside. (You can also chemically etch -scratch- the surface of your flooring and create that delicious cloudy haze, too)

That’s why using doormats is so important. Relatively people, relatively. I’m not saying  saving your linoleum is the same as saving a life, but you will end up saving some cash in the long run and who doesn’t want to do that?

If doormats are of primary importance, daily sweeping and or vacuuming comes next on the list. Why? Weren’t you paying attention a moment ago? We’re getting rid of the grit that scratches the flooring. I still love my Roomba, but I did spring for an upgrade. We’ve talked about all kinds of vacuums over the years here at Home Ec 101, but I do want to point out that woot.com – that link up there in the header often has refurbished Dysons for an excellent price. Be careful though as checking in at woot can become addictive. I may or may not have quite the t-shirt problem.

(Oh, and if you do go through that link and find something neat, it’s affiliate which means I get a few pennies, which helps keep this site running. I love y’all, but *gasp* a little financial reward for 6 years of writing isn’t entirely unreasonable.  The minions are growing and didn’t I just buy them shoes? Yes, I do buy their shoes before I enable my geeky t-shirt addiction)

So much to our chagrin we find the solution to our problem -cloudy, dull flooring- comes through preventative maintenance.

Well, crap, you probably wouldn’t be here if your acrylic flooring wasn’t in rough shape.

You can apply an acrylic floor finish to restore shine. I won’t lie, it’s a complete pain in the butt.

You need to thoroughly clean your flooring, vacuum and sweep as though your life depended on it. Then you’ll need to strip the old finish  -and you absolutely must consult the manufacturer’s guidelines before doing this or you could easily cause permanent damage or void a warranty. Yuck.

Then apply an acrylic floor polish -again with going by your manufacturer’s recommendations- carefully following the directions.

And then, once your floor is all shiny and pretty -it’s never going to look brand new again, quit hoping for that- you can start following my original advice and invest in some door mats and regular upkeep. Because really? After all that work, you don’t want to have to do it again in just a few months.

Be sure to use a very mild and dilute cleaning agent when you do damp mop your flooring to prevent that chemical etching I mentioned earlier. Why? Because I said so.

Good luck.

Submit your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

Filed Under: All, Clean It, Fix It Tagged With: ,

Not Remotely Amusing: The Broken Car Remote

February 6, 2013 By 13 Comments

Bobbie sezBobbie says:

I love my car-unlocker button thingy.

Car Remote. Keyless entry. Key fob. That plastic bit with buttons on, that hangs off your key ring and unlocks the car for you miraculously while you’re still walking to it with your arms so full of shopping and children that you can’t possibly manage keys, but you can certainly push a button to open the stupid door. Whatever you call that thingy.

I did some research to find out what everyone calls it, so I could connect with my audience.  And by research, I mean a brief and thoroughly unhelpful survey on Facebook.  It was an attempt at Scientifically Gathering Data, without actually being, you know….scientific*. I wanted to find out what to call this doo-dad so people know what the heck I’m talking about. Because, I call them The Buttons. Not even kidding. And I love The Buttons.

Well, I did love The Buttons, that is, until The Son Who Shall Remain Nameless (TSWSRN) managed to break it off the keyring.

TSWSRN has a crazy key ring with a house key, a key to my husband’s pickup and one for the 1999 Explorer that TSWSRN and I share. Three keys and an irrational number of non-key items.

When TSWSRN drives the Explorer, he takes my sensible key ring, which has the mailbox key (so he can get the mail) and The Buttons, because if you want to  open the hatch, you need them. If you accidentally set off the Very Sensitive Alarm (which is especially easy to do if you use an actual key to open it) you need The Buttons so you can turn the wretched thing off. ** The car remote is absolutely essential to the sane operation of the thing, so I wasn’t about to just stick it in a pocket once the key ring loop broke off. Much too easy for me or The Son Who Shall Still Remain Nameless to lose.

Broken Car Remote - hazardous key ring

 

He then attaches my sensible key ring to his crazy one with a carabiner clip, resulting in this twisted monstrosity. And the breaking off of the key fob.

 

Can’t imagine how that happened. Go figure.

 

 

 

So, I decided to channel my inner MacGyver and see if I could fix it with toothpicks and chewing gum wrappers, or other odds and ends we had lying about. It’s amazing what one can come up with in a pinch.

After nixing rubber bands and paper clips and duct tape, I came up with cable ties.Broken Car Remote - cable ties case

They’re also called zip ties, wire ties or tie-wraps. They’re mostly used to bundle wires together tightly and permanently, but they’re sometimes used as handcuffs in law enforcement. We happen to have a lot of them around here, because of my husband’s computer/technology business, but you can buy them in smaller quantities in a hardware or electronics department, or at a home improvement store.

I looked at my remote and decided I needed to use two cable ties. A larger one around the upper part, just above the buttons, and a smaller one to make a loop to connect to the key ring. Car remotes vary widely in design, so your placement may be different. Just figure out where you can get a secure hold without covering any of the buttons.

Broken Car Remote - 3 zip ties cable ties wire ties

 

 

 

You’ll need pliers and a way to cut the ends off the ties when you’re done. I found needle nose pliers to work best for me. Mine have a built-in side cutter. If you don’t have side cutters, a sturdy pair of scissors can be used, but be very careful.

Broken Car Remote - 4 pliers with sidecutterI made a loop from the larger cable tie, put it around the upper part of the remote, then pulled the cable tie just until it stayed in place.

Broken Car Remote - 5 loop zip tie around remote

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slipped the smaller tie under the large one on the back side, fastened it into a loose loop.

Broken Car Remote - 6 slip second cable tie thru first

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using the pliers, pulled the loose tail on the cable around the remote, and made it as tight as I could. I used the needle nose pliers and grabbed it right next to the slot and twisted, leveraging it to get it tight enough that it won’t slip off.

Broken Car Remote - 7 tighten with needlenose pliers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adjusted the hanging loop to an appropriate size, then cut the tail off both ties.

Broken Car Remote - 8 trim with sidecutters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to roll. I did this a few months ago, and it’s held up extremely well. I could probably buy a replacement for more money than I want to spend, but seriously – the new remote would probably outlast the vehicle, so why bother?

Broken Car Remote - 9 Not like new but serviceable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
*Survey results: Although a lot of people call them Key Fobs, most people don’t call them anything. All these poor car-button-thingies being ignored and taken for granted. No wonder they break off — they’re trying to run away from home.

**We bought it second- or third- or quite possibly seventeenth-hand. It has its foibles, but it’s at least it’s not possessed by an Electrical Demon like its predecessor. That was like being in a Stephen King movie, but with less dying.

You can stalk Bobbie Laughman on Pinterest, or go see if she’s up to anything at Gruntled, Sheveled, Whelmed.

Filed Under: Fix It Tagged With: , ,

Fixing Scratches in an Enameled Cast Iron Sink

January 2, 2013 By 1 Comment

Dear Home Ec 101,

I have a fairly new (less than 1 year old) cast iron Kohler sink, it is the shiny black one, the manual recommended using the Kohler cast iron sink cleaner and I have used it regularly and I have used a plastic mat on the bottom of the sink, to try to prevent scratches. Yet I have some minor scratches. Is there any way to safely remove the scratches from my sink without harming the enamel?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Again I LOVE your site and by the way I am hooked on Method products!! Love them!!

Signed,
Scratched in Scanlon
Heather says:

Take a deep breath, I have good news for you, dollars to donuts those are not actually scratches in your sink. I highly doubt you were sitting there with a chisel and hammer purpose trying to gouge your sink. That’s pretty much what it takes to mar the finish of a quality enamel finish. What you are actually seeing is called a “pot mark” and it’s just a scuff from the sink taking a tiny bit of metal off of your cookware.

It’s a lot like when somebody just barely grazes your car in a crowded parking lot and leaves a bit of their paint on your car. A bit of buffing is all it takes to get rid of their carelessness and it’s pretty much all that is needed here, too.

Go ahead and use the recommended cleaner, but find a cork, perhaps from last night’s wine-braised pot roast? Apply the cleaner full strength to the scratch on the cast iron sink and then use the cork to gently scrub the marks away and your sink will look good as new!

Pot marks will likely become a source of irritation over the years, but at least you now know that you have not inadvertently scratched your shiny, new sink. It’s going to look good as new for a long, long time.

Good luck and please let me know how it turns out.

Oh and thanks for letting me know about Method, I’ll be sure to pass that along.

Submit your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

Filed Under: Clean It, Fix It Tagged With: ,

How to Safely Remove Nail Polish from Piano Keys

October 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

Love your site! It struck me that with your knowledge of chemistry, young kids, and housekeeping, you were my best shot at figuring out how to remove lovely nail polish from nearly every key of our piano. Any ideas?

The keys are not ivory (that I can tell, I don’t know what they are) but my mother did learn to play on this piano in the 40′s. I want to cry every time I look at the bright green and bright blue (ugh!!!!!) B’s and swirly-Q’s on these keys, courtesy of my four year old. The only time I’ve really gotten courage to work on removal, I tried a q-tip with nail polish remover, but it strikes me that there are likely several types of remover so maybe I grabbed the wrong one. Help me remove the nail polish which is pretty thick on there, but not deface the keys, if at all possible?!

Thanks for all of your information. Love the way you deliver it!

Signed,
Tickling the Ivories

Heather says:

This is a tricky one, removing nail polish from piano keys is not that simple, especially because piano keys that old are going to have a lot of nicks and probably aren’t exactly white any more. Anything you do to remove the nailpolish may just leave a funny clean spot.

However here are three tactics to try:

Grab a bottle of clear nail polish and a rag. Apply the clear nail polish to the annoying nail polish and give it a moment. Then use the rag and wipe the nail polish, with a little elbow grease off of the key. This tactic may take a while, so perhaps do a few keys a day.

Alternately get plain white toothpaste. Notice I said white and not WHITENING toothpaste. You want the cheap, apply the paste and gently scrub / polish the keys with a rag, then wipe off with a rag dipped in milk. The milk will hopefully neutralize any chemical reactions that could damage the surface of the keys. After wiping with the milk, I’d use a rag dampened with plain water to hopefully prevent any funky sour milk smells.

You know how nail polish wears off of your finger nails, no matter how many clear coats you use? Well, time and use will do the same for the nail polish on the keys. Additionally, you can try speeding up that process by scraping with a nylon scraper (like the Pampered Chef stoneware kind) or the edge of a credit or gift card.

Good luck and remember in 10 or 15 years you’ll be mortifying her with the whole, “Remember when you painted the keys on my grandmother’s piano?”

Parenting. Oy.

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com

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October Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month #PinkYourSink

October 1, 2012 By 11 Comments

“Do not go gentle into that good night,”
Dylan Thomas

It’s been a tough year. Home-Ec 101 recently lost a friend to head and neck cancer. My stepbrother began, and as far as we know, is winning his fight with testicular cancer.

Every October, it seems, I add another reason, another person, another story, to the list of why we should help raise cancer awareness.

I’m tired of adding to it. I don’t want to add anyone else

We don’t need to lose any more Gene Glaves.

Tonight my son will be playing in his midget football game with pink shoelaces and a pink mouth guard. He doesn’t get why we “think pink” every October. He just doesn’t understand. Frankly, I don’t want him to, at least not yet. All he knows is that it’s okay to wear pink because it’s about making sure someday other people’s moms and dads won’t get sick like his Uncle Nigel.

Sometimes we do little things to fight in little ways against big things.

Awful things.

Things that feel insurmountable and unwinnable.

Randal Munroe has a fantastic illustration of this. Since some of you object to bad language, I am linking rather than embedding the image. I share the sentiment of the illustration, language and all. 

When we are fighting these things, we keep on keeping on. We do the little things. Sometimes things as little as washing our hands.

Today Method soap is launching their Pink Your Sink campaign.

Method is asking its fans on Facebook where it should donate $10,000 in support of breast cancer awareness and research. Fans will have the chance to submit and vote on a breast cancer affiliated non-profit organization in the U.S. and Canada for consideration. At the end of October, four charities will be chosen to receive a $2,500 gift.

I really like this tactic, not only will four charities receive a $2,500 gift, but who knows how many breast cancer affiliate non-profits will be promoted as their supporters spread the word in a ripple effect.

Method believes in “design for good” and is using these limited edition designs to help raise breast cancer awareness. And if you haven’t heard, Method is now available in a lot more places than it was just a few months ago.

Little things add up to big things and until we win. . .

Pink your sink, tie your shoelaces, put in your mouth guard, and

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own, the poetry is not.

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Water Storage Solution for Hurricane Preparedness

July 4, 2012 By 9 Comments

Heather says:

This year, after doing my annual Hurricane Preparedness Reminder, I was contacted by David Dodgen of AquaStorage, creators of the Aquapod Kit. The Aquapod Kit is a  solution to the whole, “But I don’t have enough space to store a two week supply of water for my family of six.” (Quick math will tell you that’s 84 gallons of water)

Water storage has always been one of the more obnoxious pain points of hurricane preparedness in my household. Yes, I do have about 30 gallons of water, but it’s distributed throughout the house in a closet, in the garage, under the stairs. Remembering to rotate the jugs doesn’t always happen. (Oh yeah, we’re back to that whole fallible human thing, aren’t we?)

The Aquapodkit holds up to 65 gallons of potable water and doesn’t take up more than a square foot of storage space until you need it. Brilliant!

The Aquapodkit is an incredibly simple solution to an obnoxious problem. It’s a food grade, hygienic liner for your bathtub that comes with a pump. While the liners are not reusable, you can purchase refills rather than an entirely new kit. Frigging awesome, if you ask me.

Toss the kit into a closet until a hurricane looms and then follow the instructions.

The Aquapodkit now has the Home-Ec101.com Seal of Approval.

However, there are a couple of drawbacks I must mention. The Aquapodkit is only useful for situations in which you have adequate warning. It’s not a great water storage solution for those who deal with emergencies where there may only be a few moments warning or no warning at all. And as I mentioned, the liners themselves are not reusable -the pump is. You should still keep some water on hand for emergencies other than hurricanes.

A few other quick notes about the product from the representative who took the initiative to contact me (Hey, I’m also an entrepreneur, I like people who take appropriate initiative.)

1. Our product is made here in the USA.
2. We support local organizations – our kits are put together at the Austin State School of the Aged and Disabled – we love them and have been working with them for years.
3. We are the only product that offers replacement liners / refills – a great value to the consumer.
4. My parents tested and used the product during Hurricane Katrina.

You can purchase the kits through the website directly or you can purchase the Aquapod Kit from Amazon.

I was sent an Aquapod Kit for review purposes. I opened up the box, took one look at it and said, “Brilliant.” I closed the box and put it with my emergency preparedness supplies. I may be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one. All opinions are my own, including that one. 

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Mattress Stains, When to Worry and When to Say to Heck with It

June 11, 2012 By 18 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

I’ve got a problem that I haven’t seen addressed on the blog, or anywhere else for that matter.  We have an older twin-size, leather sofa-bed; which lived happily in our library in our home for several years, did an eight-year stint as extra seating at my office, and now has been moved to its permanent home in the boys’ bedroom of our new cabin.  Taking it to the cabin was a chore; and as we’re getting older, we thought it would be a good idea to take the mattress-bed contraption out of the leather frame and take it upstairs in two trips.  No problem there, we got it apart.  Unfortunately, for the first time in probably decades, we unfolded the hide-a-bed part, only to discover rust stains on the top of the mattress!  Perhaps really cat pee stains from when it was at home?  Maybe coffee spilled behind the cushion at the office?  No clue.  I figure we can sand and paint the rusted metal hide-a-bed frame with no problem, but how do I possibly get the rust stains out of the mattress?

Any guidance would be most welcome.

Signed,

Secret Stains

Heather says:

We are going to look at these mattress stains from a couple of different perspectives.

Let’s pretend you do have a cat urine issue on your mattress.  Without a doubt you will know if you have cat pee on your mattress all it will take is a quick sniff test, not even up close and personal to your mattress, to determine if urine was anywhere near your couch. Cats are quite notorious for the amount of funk (ammonia) contained in their urine. There is simply no way a sniff test will leave you confused about the source of the stain.

Get yourself some Kids’n'Pets or other enzymatic cleaner and if you don’t own a carpet / or upholstery steam cleaner, rent one.  Also find a box fan or make sure there is lots of air flow in the room where the mattress cleaning will occur. You absolutely do not want to trade your stain issue for a mildew / mold problem. Only steam clean one side of the mattress at a time and make sure the first side is COMPLETELY -got it?- dry before doing the other.

The enzymatic cleaner should take care of any pet urine issues in your mattress.

Now here’s where I believe I’m probably going to give an unpopular answer.

If the stains were caused by rust. . . Do the stains on your mattress really matter at all?

Rust stains are harmless. Sure they aren’t attractive, but they aren’t doing anything to the mattress other than sitting there and being ugly. What’s the crime in ugly, I ask? This is a hide-a-bed, the mattress isn’t ever going to serve as a conversation piece in your home, right?

On another note, it’s not even like it’s an extremely comfortable mattress. (I’m sure someone, somewhere may make a comfortable hide-a-bed mattress, but I have never encountered one.)

If you want to ensure guests never see the stains, grab yourself an allergen mattress barrier. Zipper that around the mattress and voila! No one sees the rust stains unless they are creepy weird and unzip the barrier and really, who are you inviting into your home that would do that?

For what it’s worth, I do think you are on the right track to fix up the source of the rust stains, I just don’t think the rust stains themselves matter that much.

Good luck!

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

Related post: Mattress Cleaning and Other Indoor Sports

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How to Get Rid of Mealy Moths

May 16, 2012 By 5 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

My fiance and I recently moved into our first home together, but it soon became apparent that we weren’t the only occupants. The previous owner apparently had a mealy-moth infestation, and she oh-so-thoghtfully left it for us. They’re everywhere. I kill at least 5-10 daily and each day it seems like there’s more! I freeze all my grains and flours and sugars for at least 24 hours when I buy them, all my food is stored in airtight containers, I’ve cleaned the cabinets and the drawers and everyplace I can reach yet they’ve migrated from the kitchen (where we first found them multiplying) to everywhere in the house. They crawl on the TV screen, and I’m worred that they’re going to start eating my clothes and rugs and furniture fabrics.

I’ve bought some sticky traps, but they don’t seem to be working well anymore.

Is there anyway to get rid of these horrible little bugs?

Signed,
Creepy Crawlin’

Heather says:

Mealy moths are a miserable infestation to deal with.

First some good news, mealy moths only eat grains, your fabrics are safe. Just double check to be sure you ONLY have mealy moths in your home.

You are on the right track with sticky traps, but you may have gone overboard. Sticky traps for mealy moths have pheromones which act as an attractant for the moths. Because of this attractive scent it is very important to only use one trap per room. If you have more than one, you’ll confuse the moths and they will circle around thinking they’re about to get lucky, but never finding their potential honey. Maybe play a little Barry White to set the mood?

Do you have pets? If you have any kind of pet food in the house, it’s very possible that this is their new food source. Either store the food in an airtight container or keep it outside of the house.

Mealy moths or grain moths are especially obnoxious to get rid of because the larval stage likes to hide in the cracks of your cabinets. You need to completely unload the cabinets, remove the shelves and clean thoroughly. Get a stepladder and a flashlight because they especially like the underside of shelves. Use the flashlight and look up inside your cabinets and make sure you wipe down the ceiling of the cabinets and all of those internal corners. In the past when we had a minor infestation, I brought out the vacuum cleaner and thoroughly vacuumed the inside of all of my cabinets before wiping them down with a strong all-purpose cleaner. You know me, normally I take the enviro-friendly route, but in this case the environment is being a pain in my butt and I pull out the big guns and go ahead and use an insecticide. *GASP* Heather said use poison? Yeah, I did. You’re not rubbing it all over your food and consuming that, you’re solving a major problem and will discontinue the use as soon as you’ve fixed it.

Finally you’ll need to wipe down the walls close to where it meets the ceiling. I don’t know why, but the larvae just love to hang out there and pupate. Awesome.

So here’s the TL / DR version of getting rid of pantry moths:

  1. Remove all infested grain products from the house.
  2. COMPLETELY clean out all cabinets, inside and out, top and bottom.
  3. Store all grain products in air tight containers, preferably after the 72 hour freezing.
  4. Use only 1 pheromone trap at a time.
  5. In severe cases use an insecticide with a crevice tool to get areas you cannot clean.

Repeat the procedure on a weekly or every other week basis until moths are no longer showing up in the trap.

Good luck and I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this mess.

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

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Home Energy Conservation

May 9, 2012 By 10 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,
Help! I just read your article on removing a broken lightbulb from the socket and thought perhaps you could answer this question. Our home was built in 2006, from a reputable builder and we are the 2nd owners. We have noticed that our electric bill is considerably higher than it should be and lightbulbs are often blowing in their sockets. We are on the time of use plan through our electric company and abide, very well, by the 3-6pm rule (power is 30% higher during these 3 hours). No a/c (up or downstairs), no fans upstairs, one downstairs, no lights on upstairs, our oven, heater and water heater are all gas, and yet our bill is still huge! We think it must have something to do with the wiring (a short perhaps), but we don’t know how to go about checking or having it checked. This is something we feel needs to be corrected before we have a pool installed, or before we go broke!

Do you have suggestions on what it could be, or how we ask for service?

By the way, we live in the Phoenix area and are not looking forward to another year sweating without saving!

Signed,
Short Circuit

Heather says:

First of all, there’s a simple way to figure out if you are actually conserving as much as you think during those peak energy hours. CHECK your meter. Compare the rate of consumption at several periods throughout the day, including those peak hours.

As far as finding a reputable electrician, I’m a big fan of asking on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Obviously you’ll need to ask people in your actual geographic location and generally I would discount any recommendations from accounts representing electricians. I know whenever I see a local asking about various service technicians that I happily recommend those I’ve had good experiences with. (I try to stay away from publicly bashing companies for poor customer service, but I’m sorely tempted to call out a specific franchise for a recent experience -it happens). On Twitter, many people use the airport code to search locally. For example: Charleston, SC is #CHS

Now as few tips to reduce your electric bill.

  • Unplug chargers when they are not in use. (If you’re like me and have three or four cell chargers scattered throughout your home, this can help.)
  • Don’t underestimate the power draw of small appliances like vacuum cleaners and hair dryers, avoid their use during peak times.
  • Turn off your printer. How often do you print? Does it really need to be sitting there in standby at all times?
  • Turn off your television when no one is watching. This is especially true if you have a large, flat screen, they use significantly more energy than older types.
  • Clean the gasket on your refrigerator, your appliance isn’t designed to cool your kitchen.
  • Vacuum your refrigerator coils
  • Use solar shades on southern and western windows to reduce passive solar heating.

There are many more ways to conserve energy and I know the Home-Ec 101 community is full of ideas. Home-Eccers, feel free to share your favorite energy saving tips in the comments.

Submit your household questions to helpme@home-ec101.com

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Why Should I Run the Hot Water Before Starting the Dishwasher

March 26, 2012 By 15 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

I have always followed my Mom’s advice about running hot water in the kitchen sink before (and while) turning my dishwasher on. She also says that if you run the cold water at any point while your dishwasher is running, the water in your dishwasher will be cold. My husband recently replaced our sink and garbage disposal and noticed that our dishwasher is only hooked up to hot water.

So, do I really need to abide by my Mom’s rules?

Wondering About Water Temps

Heather says

Your mom is partially right. Running the hot water before starting the dishwasher ensures the water that fills the machine is hot instead of lukewarm. You don’t jump in the shower the second you turn on the hot tap, right? It takes a moment for the water that has been cooling in the hot water pipe from the water heater to the tap to be flushed out. Typically your dishwasher is hooked into the hot water line

Remember cleaning is accomplished through several forms of energy:

Thermal – the higher the temperature, the more dirt can go into solution

Physical – in your dishwasher this is the accomplished with spray

Chemical – this would be your detergent (Oh and as an unasked for aside and plug, I’ve been trying out the Smarty Dish by Method, which was phosphate free before there was the voluntary ban on phosphates and it’s friggin’ awesome. I bought it myself, Method didn’t supply it).

Running the cold water while the machine is running shouldn’t be an issue, but running the hot water before the basin of the dishwasher fills ensures your dishwasher starts with every advantage. Having to rewash dishes is far less efficient than running the hot water before starting your machine. You can always catch the water in a bucket and use it (when cool, naturally) for other tasks like plant watering, if water conservation is a big concern.

Send your reader questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

 

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