Cleaning with Vinegar

You have probably heard that vinegar has effective cleaning properties. It’s true. Cleaning with vinegar can go a long way in getting your home clean. It has many uses. And, as a common food, it is nontoxic and also easily available. Let’s look at it’s cleaning properties in more detail.

Cleaning products are assigned a value on what is called the pH scale—high for salts and low for acids. Both salts and acids have cleaning properties. Acids are particularly good at removing grease and oils and also have disinfectant properties. On the 1-14 pH scale, white vinegar, the preferred form for cleaning, is at 2.5—very strongly acidic.

Because of its high acidity, in fact, most uses call for diluting vinegar in water. And there are several materials that vinegar is not recommended for because it can etch or dull the surface. These are natural stone, including granite and marble surfaces such as countertops, waxed wood, cast iron, and aluminum.  If you are ever in doubt about the desirability of using vinegar, test a small, inconspicuous area of what you want to clean first.

Vinegar is well known as a powerful glass and window cleaner. Mix ¼ cup of vinegar with ½ teaspoon of dish soap and 2 cups of water for an effective spray. One word of caution: I have run into countertops made of chipped glass for which the manufacturer recommends that vinegar not be used.

Cleaning with vinegar used to be recommended for hardwood floors but these days the word is caution. The acid in vinegar can be too harsh on hardwood. For nonwood flooring, vinegar makes a good cleaner.

Vinegar is a good general cleaner for countertops, appliances, and surfaces in the bathroom. Mix ½ cup vinegar with a gallon of water and put solution in a spray bottle. For stains on metal, such as faucets, you need to let it sit the solution sit for at least half an hour.

In all these uses, vinegar has disinfectant properties but it must sit for a long time to be effective and it doesn’t kill all germs so it isn’t the cleaner of choice when disinfecting is the primary goal.

Here are some further resources:

https://www.nsf.org/blog/consumer/reliable-scientific-tips-cleaning-with-vinegar

https://www.healthline.com/health/cleaning-with-vinegar#dishwasher

https://thoughtfullysustainable.com/the-chemistry-of-cleaning-with-vinegar-a-science-experiment/