Cheap Cleaner - HomeCleaning Solution

Once again, it's time to get rid of the dirt and dust build up in your home. If you're like my family, we're working extra hard because of the colder than normal winter here in the Rocky Mountains.

Our usual winter weather is a cycle of some snow, followed by some sun, followed by snow melting and beginning the cycle all over again. This year however, we had several heavy snows one after each other which meant the house stayed closed up tighter than usual and we used the furnace and fireplace a lot more.

Over the last few months with the increased heat use, the walls and almost everything in the house started looking dull. The reason was a smoky type residue cuased no doubt from the increased use of heat.

How the problem was found...

The big problem was a coating of soot like substance that was on all the furniture, carpets, walls, etc. Now as everyone knows, you can't simply paint over dirt so the first order of business was to clean the walls.

Understand the family isn't dirty but those walls were a mess. It would have taken hundreds of dollars of cleaning solutions to do a good job so we decided to make our own using common household products.

Abigal Franks wonderful wall washing solution:

1. 1/2 cup Borax. Find this at the supermarket in the laundry and cleaning supplies section. Our Wally-World had a big box of it for 4 bucks right next to the 3 dollar a quart spray cleaners.

2. 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dishwashing liquid.

3. 1/4-1/2 cup ammonia. (1/2 gallon 97 cents)

4. 2 gallons of hot water.

That's it! Use a clean heavy terry towel and simply wash down the walls. We washed walls, furniture, the fireplace, and almost anything that was a hard surface with this solution.

Add this to the five cleaning tips and tricks and house cleaning is almost ( I said almost folks) fun.

Bookcases, lamps, etc. were all quickly cleaned and believe it or not, didn't need rinsing! So far, we cleaned the family room, eating area, kitchen and dining room walls, ceiling, cabinets, appliances, etc. all with this one washing solution. Because of the dirt build up, and the fact this wasn't done for about 4 years, the washing solution needed changed frequently. I estimated we made over 64 gallons of washing solution.

So if spray cleaners are about 3 bucks a quart and we used 256 quarts (64 gallons*4 qts each) the commercial cleaner would have cost 768 dollars. Talk about savings! All that solution cost less than 6 dollars and we have enough ammonia and Borax to keep cleaning. That's 768 dollars MINUS the 6 bucks for wonderful washing solution ingredients so we SAVED 762 dollars!

In the end, a good wall washing solution doesn't need to come in a fancy bottle or be expensive to work great. The finish out this task, we replaced the house furnace filter with a clean one and we're ready for winter!

HomeCleaning Solution

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