We live on a well with rather hard water. Whenever we iron light clothing, rust taints the fabric (from the steam feature on the iron), forcing a rewash to remedy the situation and save the article.
I’m sure Her Exalted Domestic Annoyance, Martha Stewart, has covered this subject, but it probably required an ounce of dust from the third moon of pluto and the eye of a newt to properly clean this iron.
I’ve tried to do a web search ( it’s 3:30am and I’m running on one nueron) and have come up empty. The instructions are long gone.
Does anyone here know of a way to clean rust from an iron? I thought there was something about using vinegar or something, but it’s hazy at this time of day.
Help.
Signed,
Wrinkled
The early bird gets the worm but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
You might try a product called “CLR”. You can find it in the grocery or hardware store and it dissolves calcium, lime, and rust. Hence the name CLR. I also have hard well water and I use it to clean sometimes. You may want to try it with the iron off first since I don’t think you’d want to heat the stuff unless you have to. Read the label for sure.
We have a well also and a few times each year we used to get large amounts of rust in the water. There are a couple of products that remove iron. I don’t remember the names of them but as I recall they contained oxalic acid. They could be used in the laundry to remove the rust from the cloth.
I suspect the deposit in your iron is not just rust however because it doesn’t seem to form hard deposits.
You might want to try something called LimeAway that should disolve the matrix holding the rust and flush it all away.
I added a whole house 5 micron filter which got rid of the rust problem. Cost was about $40 as I recall.
I installed it myself, so the labor cost was reasonable.
Sheesh, I’m a guy who irons maybe once a year and even I know that you use distilled water in the iron. At least if you have a well with high mineral content.
Don’t know if the old iron can be saved. Buy a new one and a demijohn or two of distilled water. They may also have Britta-like filters for removing minerals from your own water.
Fill iron with 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar; plug in and turn to highest steam setting; place on rack over broiler pan or sink and run until steaming stops; leave iron running about 1/2 hr. after steam stops.
Repeat if necessary (stubborn deposits may require two or three cleanings).
Dr. Watson
“Nephew of ‘Appliance Man To The Stars’.”
I was going to vote for CLR until I saw Crick&Watson’s abjuration to keep chemicals away from the iron.
We use it in my wife’s coffee maker without any problem. (Have to flush it out thoroughly, of course.) So I would be curious to know why it shouldn’t be used in an iron.
CLR comes in a gray quart container, flat, not round, with a white green and orange/red label.
Crick and Watson ( attorneys or a comedy team?) gave the info I was searching for.
We’ve tried CLR and found it so so. ( Too much elbow grease involved to get the rust stains off the shower wall.And frankly, cleaning the shower and toilets is only one step above picking up dog poop in my book of jobs I’d rather never do.)
We found “The Works” for about $1.99 - $3.50 depending on what kind you get, is absolutely the best. I spray the tub and tile cleaner on the shower walls…mumble…every so often and leave the ceiling fan on ( the fumes will cause death or something silly like that)and leave for, well, awhile ( ok, until the next morning) and rinse it off with water. Works like a charm. Great for toilet bowls too.No scrubbing involved.
As for my iron, for christmas we received a new one, by pure luck of the irish. My sister in law was suppose to get a new one from her mom, but received a new one from her inlaws. ( her iron, which has never had well water in the steam feature, did the same thing because she would mist the clothing with a well-water spritzer thingy and get rust stains too.) So, we received it by default.Which was perfect because that morning as I was ironing the special Xmas outfit (THAT I searched for all over town that wouldn’t make him look like an old man in a bow tie and tartan vest, TYVM) for our son and subsequently nearly throwing the damn iron out the window for putting a yellowy stain on the white shirt, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a new iron. ( I apologize for the incoherency of that last paragraph.)
I have, I swear to everyone here, read the instructions on the new iron a Rowenta Something or other Glide. I saw it priced at one store for $80. $80 bucks for an iron.Blows my mind, even though I know my MIL did not pay that much for it. It says NOT TO USED DISTILLED WATER. So I got a bottle of city water from the inlaws and we are all set. I will try the 50/50 mix that C&W gave on the old iron and see if it works.
Thank you one and all for your domestic expertise.
Shirley – many would vote for comedy team, but I appreciate yer confidence just the same. The ‘Do Not Use Distilled Water’ instruction is so much sheep dung. No one yet has invented a steam valve that is sensitive to clean water.
tomndebb – I’d not put chemical cleaning solutions in me coffee pot either, but (relatively, and without gettin’ stupidly technical) a coffee maker has a heating element that gradually heats the liquids as they pass by, whereas the steam iron has a chamber which heats up to the point of rather instantaneously turning the liquids to steam.
No small number of ‘cleaning solutions’ have a tendency to explode when suddenly introduced into a superheated environment, and we have no reported problems with good old-fashioned vinegar and water. Many of the more stable cleaning solutions have a tendency to emit toxic gasses when heated, a problem we also have not encountered with the old-fashioned remedy. I checked me jug of CLR, and found no recommendation to heat this stuff up or wash me forks with it. Clearly ye have not died from using it in yer coffee pot, but I’d be cautious about mixing this kind of chemical with foodstuffs. (You’ll notice that they provide instructions on how to clean yer Dishwasher, rather than the dishes that might be in the machine at the time.)
Call me a Republican if ye must, but I prefer to err on the side of not poisoning me loved ones or havin’ my appliances explode on the ironin’ board.
Dr. Watson
“Specializing in meaningless vignettes played out on soap bubbles.”