Work Smarter Not Harder: The Power of Water

Posted by 5x5 on February 21, 2010 under Geek Talk | Be the First to Comment

There are always chores that need to get done around the house that take away from precious programming time, gaming time, reading time or the time it takes to wear a proper groove in your couch.  Some of these chores are annoying and some of these annoyances can be solved by working smarter not harder.

Let’s take a brief look at the power of water.

Countertops: Imagine a kitchen counter covered in goo and many hard stuck on  pieces from dinners gone past.  Take a wash cloth soaked with warm water and lightly go over the entire countertop, leaving small puddles in the problem areas.  Walk away for 5-10 minutes.  This will allow time for the dehydrated food particles to rehydrate.  Once in a hydrated state, they come off the counter much more readily.

When you come back, wipe off any loose particles and repeat until the counter is clean.  This will give you time to do other things you love instead of spending your time scrubbing.

It is a good idea to have a final wipe down using a prepared cleaner containing bleach.  While the goo might be gone, you don’t want any lingering bacteria hanging around.  Additionally, you will not want to walk away from your cleaning too long or the water will evaporate, the food particles will dehydrate and you will be back to square one.

Salt Shakers

Removing product labels stuck to glass: How many times have your purchased a product that has a nasty label stuck across it?  The label might not cause the object to be nonfunctional, but who really wants salt & pepper shakers with a craptastic label and scan code staring at them during meals.

Glass is something that can withstand some amount of heat and water, making label removing fairly simple.  You may also find this technique suitable for some plastics and other items.  Using common sense will keep you from destroying whatever you are trying to remove the label from.

To determine the best way to remove labels from glass, I conducted an experiment. To conduct this experiment at home, you’ll need 4 exact objects with product label stickers on them, 4 containers of water: 1 hot, 1 hot with soap, 1 cold and 1 cold with soap.  Place one object in each water container and start a timer. Check in on your experiment frequently to get the most accurate results.

Hot Water & Soap Wins!

To be honest, the cold water time is not completely accurate.  After 2 hours and 15 minutes, the label was still firmly stuck on.  @base10 and I met @KE4ZNR for dinner at Boylan Bridge BrewPub and I checked the results when we got back.  Despite my impatience, it is clear the combination of water and soap was the fastest technique by a landslide.  The heat loosens the glue and the detergent assists in breaking down the compounds used in the glue, taking away its sticking ability.  If you decide to conduct this experiment for yourself, notice how the labels that came into contact with detergent are no longer sticky versus the ones that sat only in water still have tack. The great thing about removing labels in this fashion is, no matter what method you choose, you don’t have to come back in 5 minutes.  The glass will still be sitting in the water, unharmed 24 plus hours later.