Dial-a-Maid
Despite only being used to boil water, teakettles can get just as dirty as coffee pots, says a 40+ year old Residential Cleaning Service in Evanston, Il. Both items suffer from lime deposits, which is essentially a build-up of minerals that come from using hard water. If you are not sure whether you have hard water in your residence, you can usually tell by adding a little bit of water to a bar of soap. If it lathers quickly and easily, you most likely have soft water. If you have to work at getting it to lather, you may have hard water. Additionally, if you have hard water, you will notice staining on your coffee makers, teakettle, dishwasher, and faucets. In the complete guide of Eco-Friendly House cleaning book by Anne B. Kocsis, the following can be done to clean a teakettle:
* Pour either 1/2 cup of lemon juice or 1/2 cup of vinegar in the bottom of the teakettle, and fill the remainder with warm tap water.
* Bring the liquid to a boil. While it is still warm, but not too hot to touch, clean the outside to remove any build-up of grease and grime.
* Use a soft cloth dipped in vinegar.
* To ensure that the inside gets clean, set the full teakettle aside overnight. In the morning, dump the contents of teakettle in your garden.
* Fill the teakettle with warm water again and bring it to a boil. Once the water is cooled, use it for watering your plants or cleaning. After that, the teakettle is clean and ready to use again.
* Repeat this process as often as necessary. It depends on your frequency of teakettle use. If you use it daily, clean it out once a week. If not, clean it once a month.
If you have a constant problem with hard water build-up in coffee makers, or teakettles, says a 40+ year old Residential Cleaning Service in Evanston, Il., you may want to purchase an anti-lime disc at a kitchen shop The disc remains in the kettle and keeps mineral deposits from forming in the first place.
