A Little Home Maintenance

I am one of those people that gets and idea and thinks I must execute it right now, or it doesn't tend to happen. That would be why I was scrubbing my washing machine at 5 am this morning. (Obviously, I'm feeling better from the flu, altho I sound pretty bad).

When I took a load of laundry out of the dryer last night there were grease looking spots on nearly every piece of clothing. This has happened over the years, and sometimes I thought it was the laundry soap, other times the dryer, sometimes I blamed the washing machine.  I looked in my washing machine and around the rim was pretty gunky looking. I decided to clean the machine.  I have a top loading washing machine, and have no advice for a front loader.

To do this I do the following: 

1. Run the hottest longest biggest cycle with just water and 1 quart of bleach.  Leave the lid open so it doesn't rinse and let it set for about 2 hours, or in my case over night.

2. I put on gloves then use the bleach water and a magic eraser to scrub a dub all the areas I can.

3. close the lid and let it finish the wash/rinse cycle

Next I repeat these step except I use vinegar instead of bleach with the hottest, longest, biggest load cycle and I used a gallon of vinegar, but really a quart will do. I took apart my fabric softener dispenser from the agitator and let it soak down in the water once it was done agitating as well. 

Again, let it sit for a couple hours.   I then went in with blue scratch pad and scrubbed all the areas.  

Then let it finish out the cycle. 

While the washing machine was finishing the rinse cycle I took the opportunity to use the rag soaked with vinegar water to wipe down the outside of my washing machine and dryer.  

While wiping down the dryer I thought about how it isn't drying as well any longer, and figure I need to clean out the lint trap.

So I took the dryer apart and used a dryer lint brush (I don't know what it's really called) and went to town cleaning out the door.

That is the brush next to the pile of lint from the door.

Seriously, all that was in the door.  I would like to add I clean my lint filter after every single load. 

After putting all that in the trash. I vacuumed out any little bits of lint, then put the front panel back on my dryer. 

While doing all this cleaning I decided I should go ahead and wash the lint trap filter. 

Did you know fabric softener will build up on it making a film that will hold water.  It wasn't too bad but it did hold some water. I used dishsoap and a soft brush to scrub a dub it, rinsed it well then dried it off with a paper towel. 

Water didn't stand after its washing. Which also means air will flow thru it better. 

I did take a look at the dryer vent hose and think I'll be having my hubs change that out. We have clear hose and it is looking pretty full of lint.  I am not interested in a dryer fire, so this is an important step.  

It didn't take long or much effort to any of this, maybe 30 minutes to clean out the dryer, altho I have done this several times, I do think the first time takes a bit longer.  

Cleaning the washing machine should take care of the spots that have been happening, and hopefully the dryer will be more efficient.  

Just a little bit of time to make things work better and last longer. 

I'm gonna go rest now!  ha ha !

Have a blessed day!