Green Laundry

Can't find or decide upon a consistently reliable laundry detergent at your local supermarket?

Domestic cleaning is more fun without the presence of artificial scent detergents, especially when such fragrances can start to dominate smaller areas. As pleasant as they might be initially, they can affect fresh air circulation, especially following a wash with too generous an amount applied. Instead, next time you're at your local supermarket, purchase the largest possible bottle of lemon juice. You may have to go to a particularly large supermarket in order to find a large enough helping of lemon juice under one lid, but anything around the 443 ml mark is good. Buying more will save you trips to the supermarket while your dollar will be put to good use over time when you apply the following method across each wash.

1 - Separate your colours from whites As per usual, go about making two separate piles across coloured clothing and whites. The application techniques that follow vary slightly across the two categories.

2 - Dilute the lemon juice To help neutralise the citric acid from the lemon juice, simply apply two cap-fulls of room temperature water with every one cap-full of lemon juice - so you operate from a 2/1 ratio. Don't exceed this ratio however in favour of water dilution as you will compromise the potency of the lemon juice. This will also mean you save money since your bottle of squeezed lemon juice will last longer.

3 - Wash colours first Open your washing machine's pull out tray and apply the 2/1 ratio across the respective slots. Proceed to set your washing machine to your preferred settings, only don't use water of high temperatures as it will again compromise the effectiveness of the lemon juice as an abrasive cleaning agent.

4 - Rinse washing machine out Once your colours wash has finished, remove the clothes and place them in your designated in-transit laundry tray or basket. Before you do anything else, maximise time by setting your now empty washing machine to rinse mode. This shouldn't take any longer than 40 minutes, so be sure to set the correct mode necessary in flushing away any residual dye left from the colours.

5 - Hang colours to dry indoors While it pays to dry all clothes in sunlight, direct outdoor exposure to ultra-violet rays can cause your colours to fade. This is where you'll use your window's glass as a type of shield. Most standard windows are thick enough to protect your clothes from the sheer potency of UV rays so they are out of harm's way. Not convinced? Simply think of how humans sitting indoors against a sun-filled window don't get sunburnt. The science is the same here.

6 - Wash whites Repeat steps 1-5 with whites, only make two exceptions: firstly, add a sprinkle of salt to each slot of your tray in step 3, while doing the opposite of step 5 in this time hanging whites outdoors in order to take full advantage of the sun's brightening capacity.

Finally, it's important to realise the science behind adding the salt to whites only - in short, it speeds up dissolution since it's a chloride, so your white wash will benefit from quicker, and therefore more broad, distribution of lemon juice. The reason salt isn't applied to colours however is because it can stain. Take the example of salt stained shoes, following attempts at salt cleaning, and you will see.

Another useful and organic approach to home cleaning, make the most of those toxin-flushing properties found in lemons. If you're not convinced by the above, use lemon juice on pancakes tomorrow morning before realising how good you feel in the days immediately afterwards. Your clothes are no different, so look after them.

http://www.cleanershouse.co.uk/house-cleaning/N1-home-cleaners-islington.html

Office Cleaning: Environmental Awareness

Many businesses these days are trying to reduce their impact on the environment. With the state of modern ecology, and growing concerns about global warming, it is now more important than ever to think about the environment in all walks of life. This includes your business, and trying to find more environmentally friendly ways in which to enjoy a clean office are increasingly important. As such, take the time to follow the below steps and prepare to do your utmost in order to ensure that not only is your office clean, but that you are doing your best to help the planet.

The most obvious way people begin to become more environmentally conscious is via recycling. With so many options for recycling now available to wider society, there is no reason for you not to incorporate this into your office cleaning regime. By splitting waste into designated categories, you van allow for the impact of plastic packaging to be minimised and for any metal cans to be recycled. There is a great deal of information available from the government and charitable companies in order to ensure that you can educate the workplace and help drive an office-wide move to towards a more conscious approach to cleaning. Rather than having one big bin for general waste, splitting your items into designated receptacles can be hugely helpful. Many cleaning companies are now able to incorporate environmental concerns and issues into their service, so make sure that any cleaning company you hire is able to provide the right recycling services to suit you and the environment.

One of the biggest impacts you can have when it comes to office cleaning and the environment relates to the chemicals which you use to do your cleaning. In an office space, very little attention is paid to the particulars and the manner of the cleaning chemicals used. This can often see damaging bleach products poured into the wrong places or used in inappropriate areas. Not only are these kinds of chemicals more harmful to the environment and those around them, but their misuse can often be a huge concern. By supplying a number of industrial grade cleaners to those who might not have the training to use them properly, many workplaces find that these destructive chemicals are used incorrectly and can lead to an even greater environmental impact than might have been expected. As such, make sure to leave any complicated chemical and cleaning procedures to designated experts in order to ensure that every chemical (if it does have to be used) is used correctly.

One of the less obvious options available to business who wish to become more aware of their impact on the planet can relate to their employees productivity. When you try to cut corners by leaving office cleaning up to staff members, it can often result not only in the misuse of harmful chemicals, but in those employees becoming less efficient. If your business is to thrive, increasing productivity and efficiency is often one of the key concerns. As such, it often pays to ensure that employees are conducting the business which they are best at. Whilst it may seem counter intuitive to hire a professional cleaner to save money, it can often mean that cleaning chores are accomplished in a quicker and easier fashion, with less waste and less distraction. This is not only of a benefit to the environment, but to your business as well. If you are looking of ways to reduce your carbon footprint and impact on your planet, whilst at the same time improving your business, hiring the right help might just be what you have been looking for.

Know somebody with Cancer?

Do you know somebody who has cancer? You probably are answering, "Yes". Currently ONE in FOUR people are expected to get it during their lifetime. Its not just that diagnosis of cancer is improving, the number and proportion of people getting cancer is going up.

The focus in the battle with cancer is often MISPLACED (or intentionaly misdirected by corporations). The focus should not be on curing cancer, but on preventing it. Yes, we know that many things in the environment cause cancer. Not naturally occuring things, but poisons that we put there. Here is where the real focus should be: To stop putting known carcinogens in our food and our environment. That also, by the way, includes the carcinogens in rug cleaners.

What do the BP Oil Spill, Natural Gas Fracking
and Carpet Cleaning have in Common ?

Answer: 2-butoxyethanol

This is a carcinogen found in many commercial carpet cleaning solutions in use today.

It is also the main ingredient in "Corexit", the chemical that was used in million-gallon quantities to disperse oil in the BP Gulf Oil Spill. See here. Natural gas hydrolic fracturing or "fracking" uses this as part of the mix that it pumps into the ground to fracture shale rock and release natural gas. See here.

At green homes carpet cleaing, we don't use this stuff.

Do You Drink What You Put on Your Lawn ?

Yes you do!   See Beyond Pesticides

Did you know that the majority of pesticides and herbicides that you put on your lawn make it into your local groundwater, and therefore your drinking water? The next time you go into your local big box hardware store, look at the tens of thousands of pounds of lawn chemicals stacked up in giant sacks in the lawn and garden section of the store. A major portion of that is leaching into your drinking water. Why is this allowed? Because the companies selling these chemicals make money on them, and we who buy the stuff, don't know or don't care.

Green Microwave Tip

If you're like most homeowners, you have a hard crust of junk on the inside surfaces of your microwave oven. This is quite chore to clean, and it can require strong (and sometimes toxic) cleaners. But there is a better solution: Don't clean it.

That's right. Don't clean it. Instead, keep your oven from getting dirty in the first place. There is an accessory that you can buy now at most big box department stores that works really well to contain all the food particles that pop and fly off of your food as it cooks in the microwave. Its a simple plastic microwave cover. We put it over anything that we cook in the microwave, and you can see from the picture that ours is almost spotless. It hasn't been cleaned in months. All that's necessary now is to put the glass turntable in the diswasher now and then.

There is one caveat. Plastic in a microwave can drip cancer causing solvents onto your food. This true anytime you microwave something in a plastic container, whether its tupper ware or the plastic container that your ready made meal came packaged in. So the solution here is to transfer your food into ceramic or glass before cooking. As for the plastic cover, in most cases it will not touch your food, so its ok. If you are using the new cover that I am recommending, when microwaving something where steam will condense on the plastic lid, and then and then drip back onto your food, cover the food with a slightly damp paper towel, between the food and the plastic cover. That should protect you.

Replacing Your Carpet?

A question that I DON'T get asked often enough is: What do I recommend for carpets? If your carpets are past the 20 year mark, or just plain worn out, what should you replace them with?

First, don't get white carpets. I know, I service a lot of you folks with white carpets. But unless you are super talented, you are not going to avoid staining these. And yes, white carpets are a lot harder to clean.

Second, don't get the large loop berber carpets. These are a favorite with home building contractors becasue they are cheap, and the contractor style off-white color satisfies most everybody.

Most berber is made with olefin, the most delicate and fastest wearing fiber. Berber compresses easily and permanently in high traffic areas. Furniture impressions in berber do not recover. Berber unravels if you catch a thread in your vacuum cleaner. Berber is course under the feet. Finally, berber is most susceptible to "wickback" stain reappearance after cleaning.

I recommend nylon pile carpets. These withstand traffic for twenty years and don't easily stain. They can also be very soft.

My carpet salesman/installer friend claims that a new dupont fiber carpet made from corn oil (yes, corn oil) has even better wear characteristics than nylon. Being based on corn oil doesn't necessarily make it greener than nylon, however, because radical chemical treatments are needed to make the oil polymerize into fibers. I have seen and cleaned the corn oil carpets. They look and feel great.

Taking Care of the Pet Takes Care of the Carpet

We have encountered a lot of pet urine in carpets during our 4 years in business. We have seen enough to notice a consistent pattern. The pattern says something about carpet care in particular and pet care in general.

The most consistent pattern is the correlation between the concentration of urine and the difficulty in removing it. Concentrated urine smells bad and makes a permanent stain. In some cases we saw urine so highly concentrated that it formed large visible urea crystals on the rug after it dried, and the crystals would not dissolve upon washing. On the other hand, dilute urine almost always seems to wash out easily. Urine composition and concentration varies widely in the same animal according to their health, what they eat and drink, and their age. Highly concentrated urine is usually a sign of ill health and/or insufficient water intake.

Its very important, especially in hot Summer months to give your pet free and constant access to fresh, clean water, all day long. Dogs especially should not be forced to stay in hot rooms, and NEVER in a hot car. There is no acceptable way to keep a dog in a hot room or car. Unfortunately we have seen and heard of owners unaware of this, and pets are made to suffer cruely.

Its seems counter intuitive, but limiting access to water is NEVER a good way to control urination problems. This can only make matters worse. If your dog or cat is peeing in the house, continue to give full access to water. The constant peeing indicates a health or training problem that needs to be addressed in another way.

Dogs and cats should not be expected to stay in a crate or in the house for more than 4-6 hours without a chance to urinate. There are dozens of local pet sitting services that can come and let your pet outside during the day for very little money. Your accident prone pet may simply need to go more often than you are allowing. This is especially true for sick or ageing pets.

If your accident prone pet is fully hydrated when he/she pees on the rug, it will be dilute, and we will have a better chance to wash it out! Keeping your pet well hydrated is better for your pet and for your rugs!!

Water Test Failed - Snake Oil

Can Carpets Be Cleaned with Plain Water?

Do-it-Yourself Carpet Cleaning

• If you are doing a whole house, you need a whole day to do it right.
• Rent the best equipment you can find at a "rental center". The national brand equipment available in your supermarket leaves much to be desired. The same is true for carpet cleaning machines available to consumers at deparment stores.
• Carpet cleaning solution supplied with the rental equipment is not necessarily green. Look on the internet for "green" carpet cleaning reagents.
• DO use the anti-foamer found with the supermarket equipment, or the machine will overflow onto your floor.
• Always vacuum before doing the wet wash.
• Spot treat stubborn spots by hand with a small scrub brush before doing the main cleaning.
• Never replace wooden or metal furniture feet back on the wet carpet without putting foil or plastic between the feet and the carpet. Failure to do this will leave permanent rust or furniture dye marks in your carpet.
• Don't try random cleaners on your carpet, and especially not bleach. You will get permanent bleach marks for your troubles.
• The best way to speed carpet drying is to turn up the heat in your house to dehumidify. Also turn on fans. If it's hot outside, turn on the air conditioner to dehumidify.
• If you want to get dark edges (if you have them) clean, you cannot do it with a machine. You need a long thin hand brush. (The green colored angular grout brush at Home Depot is perfect.) Make a solution of your green cleaner at 2x strength, get on your hands and knees, and scrub around the edges of all your walls, closets and doors.

Can Oranges Clean Carpets?

On the Road with Green Homes Carpet Cleaning

Oriental Rug Cleaning

Carpet Cleaning Tip #1

What does Green Mean?

Similar Name, Different Company!

Should carpets be cleaned in Winter?

Are you a germ-a-phobic?

Does green carpet cleaning work as well as conventional carpet cleaning?