"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:
You are buying chemicals FFS! What else would you call acetic acid,
sodium bicarbonate & sodium chloride? Why are they 'good' and other
chemicals 'bad'?

Well, we know these are at least fairly safe for humans since they've been
used in cooking for many a year.

Commercial products will add all sorts of things - colours, perfumes etc
etc which aren't necessary to the product's effectiveness but will add to
the price. And it's quite possible some of these could irritate someone
prone to asthma or allergies etc.

The whole domestic cleaner market is based on advertising hype and only a
tiny amount of science. I'm amazed you haven't found this in practice.

Once you move to commercial cleaners things may be different.

For the *majority* of domestic issues, Sam is right that elbow grease and
something acid or alkali will do the job - the only exceptions might be very
greasy stuff that needs a detergent or soap (crockery and clothes and hair).
In these situations most stuff is hype as DP says and all the bottles
contain either something acidic (kitchen dirt) or something alkali (bathroom
dirt) with different smells and packaging. There are occasions (badly
blocked drain etc) where, if the bottle doesn't have a skull and crossbones
on it you may as well not bother. Most drains are not that badly blocked
though. The bad ones are probably the ones TMH gets called out to, to be
fair.

Of course TMH is right that they are all chemicals but DP right that one is
less worried by chemicals that are eaten on a regular basis!

I find similar with cement based products - floor cement, tile cement,
polystyrene coving cement, fillers. More interchangeable than the
manufacturers would have you believe!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)