Household cleaning chemicals?

I've found it often the case that if you know the particular chemical you can buy it for 1/100 of the price for household branded equivalents. Take caustic soda for example NaOH. I once bought some spray to remove tar on the glass of a wood burning stove. Looking at the label it consisted on 3% caustic soda at huge markup. Similarly if you buy drain unblocker in liquid form it is often just caustic soda at a higher concentration. but still expensive. I bought a tub of 100% caustic soda crystals for something like £5 for a 5 litre tub. Much much cheaper than any other way of buying it. You just have to take a lot of care when using it because it gets very hot (or even boils) when mixed with water and can spit highly caustic bits at you if you mix it wrong. A good knowledge of chemistry comes in useful sometimes when buying common chemicals or their branded household equivalents.

The same applies to garden fertilisers and weedkillers try and buy the active ingredient, much cheaper.

A prime example of this is glyphosate. The price of the generic stuff has doubled over the last few years and is now around £29 per 2.5 litres. However it is still much much cheaper than buying it under the brand name Roundup. I saw some Roundup the other day at £20 for 5 litres PRE DILUTED READY TO USE. The markup is horrific something like a factor of a hundred times more expensive to buy the branded Roundup equivalent!

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember David in Normandy snipped-for-privacy@nospam.nospam saying something like:

Exactly so. I bought some glyphosphate in the local farmers' store a couple of years ago for approx €23 /5L and that will last me decades (assuming it doesn't go off), compared to Roundup at damn near twice the price. Of course the genuine Roundup claimed to be better - ha, tell that to the weeds that are all toasty.

And for moss killer on the lawn .. Ferrous (iron) Sulphate

He gave you good advice.

You don't need bleach. It achieves nothing in a bathroom.

Not if you follow the instructions.

None.

Trust me, you only need a few thing to keep a house clean.

Jangro are a buying cooperative of independant janitorial suppliers, they know their stuff & have huge buying power.

First of all, in the bathroom you only need a daily cleaner & a toilet bowl descaler. Bleach has no place in a bathroom, its a complete waste of money.

For a daily cleaner the Toilet & Washroom Cleaner Descaler or the Perfumed Toilet Cleaner will do sinks, toilets, baths. showers etc. Acidic Toilet Cleaner & Lime scale Remover will deep clean the toilet bowl once a week.

For the kitchen all you need is a good hard surface cleaner either the Jangro Heavy Duty Cleaner Odourless or the Kitchen Cleaner Sanitiser Odourless

These are both 'no taint, no taste' cleaners.

Most of those are available in 1 litre bottles. Try a few, then buy 5 litres of the ones you like.

You might want to add a glass cleaner, an air freshener and a polish.

Worth checking out toilet roll prices as well.

We use Sainsburys 'basics' bio washing liquid in hot water [ie the stuff for clothes] for lots of general stuff, but its especially good on floors [tile and laminate] and all round the bathroom - I use a car brush, gets in all the corners on sinks/loos etc. Then rinse off with brush and plenty of water. Things get a bit wet, but just clear the surfaces and do it prior to mopping floor. Put a capful of Savlon antiseptic liquid in the solution for hygene/freshness - tho probably not really needed. Super clean and only takes a quarter of the time compared to fiddly sprays and cloths. £1/litre and it will last for ages.

I've been trying to persuade Management of this for years: care to provide me with some 'useful' phrases?

Well bleach does kill germs, unlike some cleaners. Opps that isn't going to convince them is it?

Bleach doesn't remove dirt, it bleaches the colour out so you can't see it.

Typical example is a WC bowl. Made of a very smooth, glazed ceramic material so that bacteria can't stick & multiply.

Limescale forms, giving the bacteria somewhere to hide & you get stains & smells. Bleach kills the bacteria & removes the colour so all looks clean. It can't remove the limescale, so next use starts the cycle over again.

If you use a decent mildly acidic toilet bowl cleaner it keps the limescale at bay, so bacteria has no place to multiply.

What about bathroom mould?

What about it?

Dave

Doesn't it make lovely, pretty patterns?

Ventilation.

Just sorted that out. Am off to clean the mould away (MiL's), is the vent (timer + sensor) likely to keep the mould from reforming?

Thanks for that: just what I wanted. Care to elaborate on 'a decent mildly acidic toilet bowl cleaner'? Don't be afraid to name names!

Certainly should.

There are many on the market - Toilet Duck etc. The makers are a little vauge sometimes & use weasel words/phrases. Look for something that actually say "limescale remover" or "removes limescale" rather than "helps to" or "reduces".

Supermarket own brands are often as good as brand leaders. Next time I pop into Morrissons or Tesco I'll have a look.

Hey, we're filling up with UKRMers here