Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The easiest and cheapest washer cleaner ever.

First off, for anyone that has read my blog before and knows me, sorry for the long absence! I haven't posted since NOVEMBER! My Etsy shop and Facebook pages, along with 2 crazy little girls, have kept me pretty busy!

On to the easiest and cheapest washer cleaner post you're here for...

A while back I started seeing those new commercials for the washer cleaner pouches by the major brand names. I thought, "Ahh, crap, I probably need one of those." Then I saw the price and realized I'm way too cheap for it and definitely too cheap to do it so many times as they suggest.

So then I started Googling for methods that were easy and cheap. I found one! I tried the method I found on THIS blog. I was amazed at how well it worked. I pinned it on my Pinterest page and it has been re-pinned like crazy. I thought I would link it on my poor, neglected blog, making sure to credit where I saw it first, and show you picture proof of how well it works.

So the easy and cheap method I use to clean my front loading washing machine requires these two ingredients:

4 cups of chlorine bleach
4 cups of white vinegar


The blog I followed used "quart" as the measurement. I have a hard time remembering measurement conversion. 4 cups = 1 quart, trust me, I checked. I thought it would save a few people the trouble of double checking that fact also.

So I'm going to show you pictures of my gross washing machine. Really. Don't read this and think, "It can't be as bad as mine..." I wash cloth diapers in here. Cloth diapers with poop on them. Lots of it sometimes if I'm lazy about scraping it off in the bathroom. I also have a gross and furry dog. And 2 kids (girls!) that like to play in dirt outside. So now I will show you some pictures of what my washer and door seal area looks like.


 See? Gross right?

Now I do the bleach part first, following the super easy instructions. Pour 4 cups of bleach into your detergent area so it goes right into the tub. I put mine in the area where powdered detergent would go so I could pour it all. I took out the "liquid" tray that is normally here and just poured it in the "main wash" area.
I ran my washer on the Sanitary cycle. It runs the wash at extra hot and the rinse is cold. The cycle is about an hour and half.

Then I use the 4 cups of vinegar the same way. Pour 4 cups of vinegar into your detergent area so it goes right into the tub. I ran my washer on the Sanitary (extra hot/cold) cycle again for about an hour and half.

The results - AMAZING!



I did not wipe down any part of the inside of my washer. I did not touch any of the grossness in that door seal. My husband didn't believe me. He thought I was trying to make my method look better than it actually was. I did nothing but these two cycles with maybe about $1 worth of cleaners and a few hours of time running the washer. It might smell like bleach for a bit but it will not damage your clothes since we ran that vinegar cycle. (BUT, that said, I usually do a batch of towels first!!)

If you have a top loader you would just run the hottest, longest wash you have, once filled with water add your bleach. Once that empties and the washer is still wet, dump in the white vinegar, then run the hottest, longest cycle again.

Happy washer cleaning!! Let me know if you try this and like it! Feel free to pin away this post too!

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