Useful Ideas and Tips from East Leake Hardware

Environmentally friendly products like those our grandparents once used to great effect were not merely "old wives" nonsense.  There were few household machines in those days so anything that made light work soon gained popularity.  

White Vinegar is a perfectly natural surface cleanser with anti bacterial properties.  Not only that it is perhaps one of the best cleaning solutions for shower screens and shower heads.  My grandmother mixed it with natural turpentine for cleaning mirrors and picture frames.  Lime-scale is easily dissolved by an acid so it makes a safe and bio-degradeable cleaner that will out-perform properietory cleaning products, especially if used regularly, doesn't degrade  gold plating and it's cheaper!

Bicarbonate of Soda (baking soda) is yet another product that has sadly fallen out of favour and yet it is the best cleaner and deodouriser you can use in your fridge or dishwasher and it's perfectly safe on all surfaces.  It will remove tea stains from cups and teapots and made up as a paste with water, will remove mildew stains from shower curtains.

(You can buy "food grade" bicarbonate of soda from the pharmacy or baking section of a supermarket.  It serves as a good cure for indigestion or cleaning teeth. Mix it with cream of tarter and you have baking powder).

Household Borax is a safe, effective multi purpose cleaner that will shift stains, clear drains and leave your surfaces beautifully clean.  A few borax crystals in the bath is reputed to ease insect bites and other minor irritations and it can be used with cat litter to deodourise for longer.  However it is also an effective and inexpensive woodworm, dry-rot treatment and fungicide.

• Standard Concentration - 0.5kg of Borax powder dissolved in 12.5 litres of water, for normal common furniture beetle attack (small areas of scattered 'dart' sized holes)

• Heavy Concentration - 1 kg of Borax powder dissolved in 10 litres of water, for severe common furniture beetle attack (wood is beginning to crumble) and as part of Death Watch Beetle, Wet Rot and Dry Rot treatment.

You can paint, spray or roller generously onto the areas to be treated and unlike some treatments, it will stay in the wood for years.  Being water based, it leaves no other residue and is non-toxic to humans and pets (except fish) in this application.

Note: Although borax is very low toxicity, don't use it around food and keep it out of reach of children and pets as you would other cleaners.  If you get it on clothes or soft furnishings, wash or rinse them to avoid staining. 

More Useful DIY Ideas and Tips Coming Soon

These are just examples of what you can find at East Leake Hardware and we will soon be introducing more online pages of handy hints and tips for using environmentally friendly products and effective old-fashioned tricks that save money.  We also hope to include a series of "HOW TO" pages that you can easily print out for your DIY projects.