CHAPTER XLIII
TAKING CARE OF THE HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENT
As we have intimated before in these articles, the best of everything may be yours, yet if you care for them in slovenly, careless or uninformed ways it will be as if you had nothing whatever of any value.
The persistent ignorance of the seemingly most enlightened and experienced housekeepers as to the use and care of the refrigerator is appalling. It is positively amazing to see the breakage of sane rules of procedure in favor of what seems to them proper. For example, the best of housewives will insist on filling the ice chamber of the refrigerator with but a suspicion of ice and a riot of food, whereas the ice chamber is meant for ice, and ice to the limit of its capacity, not once a week but every and all day. Unless this is done the air currents over which the manufacturer has slaved to make possible will not occur, and the best refrigerator becomes a useless thing. You might just as well get a packing case and stuff it full of ice and food. The ice chest must be full in order to cool the air and start the heavier (cool) air falling through the chest, which as it descends gets warmer, rises, passes over the ice, cools again and drops--and so on in endless circulation. It is these currents which keep the refrigerator cold; it is not the ice cake itself. In a little ice box, yes, the food has to be put into the ice chamber as there is no other, but here you are not depending on the melting of the ice starting air currents to descend and to rise. The problem is quite a different one.
We think probably the difficulty with the owners of refrigerators is that they have the ice box in mind and it is an inherited notion that the food must be in close proximity to the ice. This paragraph may seem a digression, but it is purposely put in to emphasize the fact that the ice box and the ice refrigerator are two very distinct and different things. Therefore, be it remembered that in the refrigerator you must not waste the ice by cuddling warm provisions next it, because your ice is like a battery. It, too, makes currents--not electric, but air currents.
Now then, when we have the ice-making currents, what happens to the air of varying degrees of temperature? The coldest air is at the bottom of the refrigerator (of course we are always thinking of the best refrigerators) because cold air is heavier than warm air and the warm air rises. Therefore, if you have odorous things do not put them in the ice chamber because the air starting down will carry odors along. Put the odorous things and the things that should be kept coldest on the lower shelves.
In some chests the currents of air are so good that onions and butter never exchange compliments--a highly snobbish society where there is little amalgamation.
One buyer of an expensive refrigerator said that his refrigerator was a great disappointment because the ice chamber leaked. Now this was a strange thing, for these ice chambers are made of the best workmanship known to refrigeratordom. Everything was questioned: Did you keep your ice chamber full? The reply: Yes. Did you keep things other than ice in the ice chamber? The orthodox answer came: No. Do you close the door of the ice chest completely? Answer: Yes.
So the repair man went to the house to give the erring chest a stethoscoping and found that the floor of the ice chest’s compartment was a little uneven and the water was forced from the melting ice into foreign channels and escaped through the front of the ice box, dropping in streaking lines on the front façade.
This is but a minor point, yet the refrigerator or the stove or the vacuum cleaner or the anything is often blamed for misplacements, lack of care and ignorance on the part of the operator, and this article is meant to forestall a very few of them.
Here, then, are some things to watch out for:
1. Keep the doors of the refrigerator closed always. If they don’t close easily, see to it that something is done to make them close.
2. If you have a refrigerator with a lot of movable parts it is well to remove them and immerse in hot water occasionally. But don’t buy one that has many outgoing parts; it’s unnecessary and a constant bother to adjust.
3. Once a week wash out the whole chest with warm water and soda; never use strong smelling soaps. Ammonia can be used but it is probably best to use soda. Hot water cleans better, of course, but it will give the ice more cooling to do and if the box is cleaned regularly cool water ought to do the trick well enough. However, every so often the hot bath is a good thing.
4. Every day wash off the ice that newly enters the ice chamber.
5. Never wrap the ice in paper thinking to save ice, because ice only makes cold air by melting. Here is a place where the good and saving housekeeper saves ice to the destruction of her food stuffs, yet this is the hardest bit of politics to propagate.
6. If the lining gets discolored use some harmless preparation to remove the stains.
7. It is sometimes a good idea to put a piece of waxed paper around highly odorous foods.
8. Wash everything in the way of utensils that are put in the box. Have a regular refrigerator set of dishes.
9. Wash vegetables before entering, for if there is anything introduced in the way of foreign matter, the enemy alien may make for odorous trouble.
10. Cover any receptive foods; it’s wisest even with the most perfectly ventilated refrigerators. Liquids will dry up a bit with a dry air circulation and egg yolks kept in water will keep better if the water is changed daily. If dampness collects in your refrigerator something is wrong.
11. Wash off the outside of refrigerator with damp cloth every week.
12. Remove ice rack and scrub well in water and soda weekly.
13. Boil parts (removable) twice a month or use very hot water.
14. Dry case thoroughly after every douching.
15. If the refrigerator is well connected to drain, a little hose to flush the interior will be simple and easy.
16. The drain pipe must be carefully flushed, as here the invading army of typhoid, etc., loves to encamp and make inroads. See to it that the drain pipe is easily removed and cleaned and that the drain pan (should the drain pipe have no outlet into the plumbing system) be easily removed at least once a week to be cleaned out.
With these few words we will leave probably the most familiar bit of household mismanagement to a reforming public, and pass on to some floor coverings.
In the case of linoleum and similar floorings we will take for granted that they are perfectly laid down and that all that there is for us to think about is the nursing of them. Even the cheaper (printed and not inlay) of these floorings will last years if the following suggestions are absorbed and put into regular practice:
Sweep linoleums daily. This is easy.
Use an oil mop daily.
Never use anything but a mild soap and tepid water for cleaning.
Then rinse with clear water and dry thoroughly. It should be done a square yard at a time, each yard carefully dried before going to the neighboring yard. Do not flood when a mop is used.
Elbow grease, mild soap and warm water are all that is necessary.
Avoid as the plague: lye, soda, potash and all cleaning inventions which may harbor lyes!
Polishing makes the flooring last longer, of course. Colors will be reborn each time and the floor withstand wear better. Use a good floor wax. A home-made kind, if you can’t buy any of the finest kinds on the market, can be made of beeswax and turpentine in equal parts. Use all the polishes sparingly and not more than once a month. Rub in well, however, when you are doing it.
It is well to have glass or metal caps on heavy furniture as narrow castors are prone to furrow.
For cork floors:
Sweep daily.
They must be washed with tepid water and weak soap.
Polishing is unnecessary.
Floors of tiles, etc., should be swept daily. Flush with warm water. Scrub once a week, strong soap and elbow grease. Soda and water will remove stains. If not, use a weak hydrochloric acid or oxalic acid and wash off immediately with water and soap which will stop the further
## action of the acid on the tile. (One part of acid to two parts of
water.)
Wooden floors also should be swept daily. Swab (don’t scrub a varnished or painted floor) with warm water and weak soap. Keep hardwood floors free from grit, which bites and grays. Use a soft dry mop of felt or the brushes the reliable manufacturers make for the hardwood floors. Occasionally wipe off with some well known and tested floor finish.
To-day with rustless and ordinary steel the problem of cutlery is simpler and yet more diversified. In the case of cleaning and scouring ordinary steel you can use almost any good scouring powder, but not in the case of the stainless rustless variety, as it reduces the polish, the very thing that maintains imperviousness to rust and stain. Cutlery should be cleaned immediately after using.
Sharpening knives is best done by an expert. Yet there are good rotary sharpeners and stones and steels for home usefulness or knife destruction depending upon how they are used. Remember when you use a stone not to feel that you must cut through the stone itself and that what you are trying to do is to flatten the edge of the knife and wear off the offending bluntnesses. The ideal thing is once or twice a year to send the knives to a grinder and then occasionally at home run the knife blade flatly over a carborundum stone to get a smoother edge.
The stainless steel cutlery has a special kind of sharpening stone at present on the market and it is well to use this.
Good knives need no further edging when new.
But though you may have the best steel and the best sharpening, if you house your knives badly you will have lost all the good from these things that there is. It is not good for knives to be huddled together. They get as cutting as humans would in the same position. If they live in a small place together without their own places they, as people, wear on each other. They knick each other’s blades and spoil each other’s usefulness. Knives should be hung or laid in grooves. A box is now made for the proper housing of them. You can, too, hang each knife on a spring which you can get at a hardware shop. If you reserve a tenement house law for the knives of your household you will have real health and help from them.
The same story holds for forks. It would be a good thing to have a _verboten_ sign in your kitchen, reading: “It is forbidden to open cans, uncork bottles, unlock oven doors, pry open ice chests, take a nail out of a box with the forks in this kitchen.”
In the case of wooden handles, do not let them remain soaking in hot water for ages. Wash and clean them at once.
FLOOR COVERINGS
Floor coverings such as mattings and carpets are to-day best taken care of by the vacuum cleaner. Hot water cloths with a suspicion of ammonia laid on top of matting are supposed to be a good thing for its longevity after it is vacuumed.
Carpets are now coming back into being after years of retrogressive hate. Now on account of the vacuum cleaner they can be used in all their warmth and beauty and kept sanitary for ordinary uses by the vacuum cleaner. Talking of this:
The only thing that this instrument of redemption needs is oiling, but not too often; an occasional dusting off; and the emptying of the dust over something that doesn’t give it back.
Stoves of themselves don’t get very dirty. It is the foods that are the transgressors. It is wisest to clean all stoves when cold. Use kerosene or stove black. In the case of the gas stove, when the gas vents become clogged by drippings of food it is well at least once a week to take them out and emerse in soda and water. Wipe off grease and grit before cleaning surface of stove and always remove dirt at once. If grease is removed after every using of the stove, it will be very easily maintained in cleanliness and it will never run away with you.
The trays under the burners in gas stoves should be cleaned often and well. Burners of oil stoves, too, can be immersed in soda and water. About one quart of water and one-quarter pound of soda make a good cleaning solution.
SOME MISCELLANIES
Don’t let any solid foods get into the sink. Always have a good sink strainer. Soda and water is a good cleaner. Flush sink with hot water and clean it at least three times a day. Grease is a forbidden quantity in a sink and should any get in, the hot water flushing will disintegrate it. Warm water and soap, fine powders such as whiting, etc., will keep porcelain sinks in good order.
Nickel can be cleaned with soap and water and polished with ungritty, well devised polishes. Never use anything that will scratch it.
Boil iron in soda and water, rub with some good powder with a bit of scratch in it. Use hot soap suds. Dry while it is hot.
Do not use soap on aluminum; there are regular aluminum cleaners on the market. Occasionally only use a little acid, such as lemon or tomato diluted. Never use soda.
Boil agate in soda water. Wash in hot soap suds and dry.
Use dilute oxalic acid for cleaning brass, fine powder, plenty of water. Polish with metal polish which abounds on the present market.
Tin can be cleaned with soda and water, but do not leave it in this solution long, as the alkali will eat the tin. Wash and dry at once or you will have rust on your tin ware.
The silver story is long but well known. The only thing not to do is to use gritty powders that will scratch. Wash your silver after cleaning, as the cleaning mixtures do not make good appetizers.
In caring for electric ironers and washing machines, first of all read the directions that come with them. Oil as they tell you or don’t oil; too much oil is bad and too little is bad. Do not overload (with clothes) your cylinder or your drum; some motors rebel and there is trouble. When buying your washer be sure to tell the electrician what kind of electricity you consume, whether it is A C or D C; also the voltage of your circuit. This applies to all electric machinery.
Don’t leave your electricity on when you are not using a device. If you do in the case of the iron, you will have fires and all kinds of trouble. Don’t blame the machine for faults of your own. Remember in the case of the electrical ironer that heat is hot and that if you leave a piece of goods on the roll and the motor going you will burn your article.
These things are cleaned with warm water and polished and dusted in accordance with the ordinary metal needs. There is little to say about their upkeep except what has been said about other devices. Follow the directions of the makers; they know the exigencies of their offspring.
Soft cloths and warm water are best for cleaning white wood enamel. Soaps yellow the enamel, so a few drops of ammonia added to a pail of water will help banish grease.
Warm water and soap or soda and warm water will clean off marble tops.
In the long life-assurance of metals generally, it must be born in mind that in order to keep them clean and bright things must be used that will not scratch, corrode or roughen--or at least do as little of these things as possible. In the case of silver cleaning the aluminum pan method is best because there is less corrosion and less roughening.
Rubbing with soft chamois and cloths after cleaning will give the metal the polish it often needs. Buffing and the use of pumice powders and pastes help along the better finishes. But these things all must be done in moderation to preserve the life of these metals. The more precious gold or silver must be treated of course with great care. Chemicals are dangerous and the best acids are lemon and those things which cannot poison. Many combinations are poisonous and must be used with discretion and the article well washed before using.
Were the space allotted for this story greater we could take up many more things, but space being the rarest of commodities we shall have to end with one last admonition:
When your devices do not work, as guaranteed, first look to yourself or assistant and see what is wrong. Then if you find you can absolve yourself from the great transgression--carelessness or ignorance--it will be time enough to attack the dealer and get redress.
##