Cleaning up

A surprising amount of my professional life was spent on cleaning products. I started my practical career after Information work in what Unilever called Hard Surface Cleaning. This was mainly concerned with hand dishwashing. Although I never worked on this myself in a lab with this as its main focus I picked up a lot of know how. So my dishwashing tips

Dishwashing. Immediately after finishing using a utensil or plate put it to soak in water. Cold tap water is fine, hot if you have it. Wash in hand hot water, as hot as comfortably possible. Use the recommended dose of dishwashing liquid, overdosing offers no benefit. After washing rinse under the tap and stack to air dry. Don’t use a tea towel they are crammed with bacteria. Drying with a tea towel is worse than just leaving to air dry covered by a dry tea towel.

If you have a dishwasher that is far better because it can use higher temperatures and a more alkaline solution so the bug count is far less than hand dishwashing. I worked on machine dishwashing for a while and I was impressed by how much better than hand dishwashing it was.

Rather later in my career working on industrial cleaning I had quite a bit to do with vehicle cleaning. I had to be shown the best method. Apply the cleaning product either as supplied or more usually pre-diluted to up to 10:1. Apply with a low pressure spray from the bottom of the vehicle moving up.  Pre spray running down can result in marks which are difficult to remove To reduce any risk wet the surface first. The Sunday morning car wash using hand wash products is often diluted in a bucket. Don’t judge by the amount of foam produced. The best products produce little foam. All a high foam does is make you rinse more.

Then rinse off using a water spray, a hose connected to a tap is fine. In commercial practice water is applied using a pressure washer. The washer jet is normally about 45 degrees to the surface and about six inches from it. Any closer and you run the risk of scraping the nozzle on the paintwork.

Don’t waste your money on the garage forecourt big brush washers. The brushes are almost certainly holding hard particles which will damage the paint. Also don’t waste your money on so called wax rinses. They may give a short term water repellent effect ( like new paint ) but the long term protection is negligible.

There are a few other tips I can think of. In a car screen washer don’t use dishwashing liquid. It will foam too much and not help cleaning much. Use something like a floor cleaner which foams less and cleans better. Specialist anti freeze products are worth it in the winter. The best use an ingredient which prevents washer jet nozzles from freezing up. Before using anything as a summer screen wash try a bit first as some multi purpose cleaners  leave a greasy looking hydrophobic deposit on glass..