Woolworths has a range of organic cleaning products (which it looks like they’ve named “earth friendly“) that has a couple of benefits.

Save the Planet!

The first benefit is the obvious “I feel good because I’m helping the planet”. I don’t really know if organic products are always better than their non-organic versions, but for cleaning and disinfecting, I’m pretty sure using organic of synthetic “poison” would be a little better.

They have a “natural marble and granite cleaner” spray which contains bergamot, eucalyptus and thyme. It smells great, and my wife says it works really well (and I must say, the granite counters really do look clean afterwards ).

The description on the back says the following:

Carefully formulated with naturally derived, plant-based ingredients that are both tough on dirt and grime, our marble and granite cleaner gently yet effectively cleans all natural marble and granite surfaces, leaving them sparkling clean and fresh.

• made with biodegradable ingredients
• no petrochemicals
• not tested on animals
• no artificial colours
• no animal ingredients
• fragranced naturally with essential oil

As kind to the environment as it is to your home and family.

Don’t poison yourself!

Another benefit is the most important benefit of all. Obviously.

My wife works for a large retail chain. And when I say large, I mean LARGE! (No, it’s not Woolworths). And she says that it’s their policy not to use ANY poison near food in their shops.

So if there is a need to get rid of flies or bugs, they have to use other methods of doing this. (And if you DON’T see flies or bugs, it’s because whatever they’re doing is working).

When my wife saw that Woolworths was selling organic products, she snapped them up.

It’s obviously really important to her that we follow standard food and safety guidelines at home, so I guess I can be happy about.

How are YOU helping to keep your family safe and sound at home? Can you pass on any tips to our fellow readers?

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2009. | Organic Cleaning Products | No comments yet. Click here to add yours... |

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This means that pyjamas, underwear, sheets, blankets, socks, etc. do not need to be ironed.

Why would they need to be ironed anyway?

Well, I’ve heard MANY horror stories about how flies and other bugs can land on clothes that are hung out to dry, and if they aren’t ironed, may have deposited eggs/larvae that may work their way into your skin! So anything that is hung out to dry must get ironed, in my opinion.

But, tumble dryers are a big energy/electricity user, so anything you can do to save electricity while using your tumble dryer helps.

Hence, my little reminder:

Make sure that all the clothes, sheets, socks, etc. are loose when placed into the tumble dryer. After a spin cycle in your washing machine, sheets can get tangled up and twisted. If they’re put into the tumble dryer like this, chances are they won’t dry as quickly. Items put into the tumble drier need to be as loose as possible for the warm air to flow through them and dry them.

Anyway, hope you’ve had a great holiday season, and have an EXCELLENT start to the New Year!

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2008. | Quick Tumble Dryer Tip | Only one comment. Click here to add yours... |

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Soap and skin and oil and a whole lot of other nasty stuff can really leave stains on your shower floor, and what better way to remove them than with drain cleaner?

Drain cleaners tend to be a pretty strong acid whose actual goal is to remove things a lot tougher from your drains, so it’s really ideal.

What I do is:

• buy a bottle of drain cleaner from Pick n Pay for about R30,
• pour it onto the floor of the shower
• using the bottom of the bottle to spread it and make sure I don’t miss a spot – DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS! IT’S DANGEROUS!
• wait about 15 minutes to make sure it has enough time to work
• turn the shower on and rinse the floor. Make sure you let it run for a while (i do it for about 5 minutes) to ensure there’s no acid left on the floor. You REALLY don’t want to get into a shower barefoot while there’s drain cleaner on the floor!

It is really amazing how clean the shower floor will get, removing all marks and stains.

Do YOU have any tips or ideas?

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2008. | Cleaning the Shower Floor | 2 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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Enjoy the jokes…

• If you’re choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.
• Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.
• Avoid arguments with the females about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.
• For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure on your veins.  Remember to use a timer!
• A mouse trap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
• If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives.  Then you’ll be afraid to cough.
• You only need two tools in life: WD-40 and duct tape. if it doesn’t move and should, use the wd-40. if it shouldn’t move and does, use the duct tape.
• Remember – everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
• If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem.

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2008. | Simply Amazing Home Remedies | No comments yet. Click here to add yours... |

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Household Services Review

If you’re looking for a maid or domestic cleaning service to come and clean your house, PLEASE consider using someone else.

IF the maid arrives on the day, she does a fair enough job. At least Zodwa did.

But out of the 5 times that the maid was supposed to arrive, she only pitched up twice.

Household Services Breaks Promises

Now it’s not just a case of “let’s see if we can send someone”.

It was “she’s definitely coming at 8:30 on Friday”. And then I phoned on the day and the excuse is:

“Zodwa couldn’t make it”

What kind of business does Household Services run when they can’t even guarantee that their own staff will arrive at the clients site.

Household Services Phone Number

If you’re looking for the house hold services contact phone number, here it is: 011-we-are-useless

This can sound kind of petty I guess, but this is frustrating. Especially when they leave you stranded the day before Christmas to clean your house, when you’re catering for a party for 10 people the next day…

Anyway, have you had any experiences with them you’d like to share?

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2008. | Household Services Maid Service Sucks | 8 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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What happens is that after doing a rinse cycle, (you ARE doing a rinse cycle first, right?), I put the dishwasher dial onto the Wash Cycle option, but it just does a rinse again.

This can be REALLY irritating, and very possibly only happens to me.

But I’ve FINALLY “cracked the code” that ensures that my dishwasher washes when i want it to.

There are 2 things you need to ensure:

The “END” light should be OFF

The “END” light comes on to tell you that a cycle has completed. But it must be off before the next cycle starts. It normally goes off when you open the door to the dishwasher, but occasionally it comes back on when you close it again.

Go SLOWLY when changing the dial to “WASH”

I’ve noticed that ensuring the “END” light is off is not always enough. Sometimes, it’s just that I turned the dial from “Rinse” to “Wash” to quickly.

I have 5 settings on my Dishwasher. Number 1 is Rinse and Number 4 is Wash.

When turning the dial from 1 to 4 I have to ensure that it stops at each number for at least 1 second to ensure it “realises” that the dial has changed.

Anyway, I hope this has helped somebody else out there…

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So, let’s all be kind to mother nature and save money while we do it…

I can’t believe I actually used a line like that… let’s just save money…

Please note, this is not a scientifically proven article. As I’ve said, it’s mainly common sense. If you disagree, or feel like adding to these ideas, please leave a comment below.

- Fridge

Your fridge is working hard all day and night, working harder when it’s warm outside and when it’s full. In most fridges there’s a dial on the inside which regulates how cold it keeps your food. You don’t need to turn this all the way up. And in winter I tend to turn it lower than in summer.

Another thing is, most modern fridges have a button on the outside which says “holiday” or “vacation”. This is for you to press when you are going away for a while. The reason is because when you are at home, you keep opening the door to get something out of the fridge, which lets the warm air in and the cool air out. But when you are on holiday, this isn’t going to happen. So you can set the fridge to use less power to keep your food cool.

- Lights

As I’ve mentioned in my other article on CFL light bulbs, you can save energy by replacing your current light bulbs with the low energy bulbs. I especially recommend that you do this for any bulbs that you keep on for more than 3 hours at a time, like garden lights, patio lights, or front door lights.

Because CFL light bulbs don’t get as hot as normal bulbs (hence their energy saving capabilities), I’ve also placed small CFL bulbs into my bedside lamps. When I’m reading in bed, the lamp isn’t that hot next to my face, and if I need to move it, I won’t get burned. These are also really great if you’ve got plastic lamp shades…

- Geyser

The geyser uses a LOT of power to heat up your water. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a “holiday” button like your fridge. Though it should. So, when going away for more than a couple of days, I turn the geyser off at the house’s main power board (the electrical mains). It might be a coincidence, but when I turned the geyser off for a week, my electricity bill was almost 30% cheaper.

- Hot water

Carrying on from the geyser is the fact that, using more hot water means the geyser needs to warm up more, which means using more power. A quick and easy tip is to use the shower/bathroom nearest the geyser, mainly in winter. The reason behind this is that water from the geyser will need to travel through the pipes to the taps, losing a lot of it’s heat along the way, until the pipes have warmed up.

And, when you’re finished, a lot of hot water will sit in the pipes, cooling down. This is water that you will probably just “pour down the drain” next time you shower/bath until the water warms up.

Here’s an experiment: Run the taps in the bathroom closest to the geyser, and see how long it takes for the water to come out hot. Now do the same for your other bathroom. I’ll bet there’s quite a difference.

- Electrical Appliances

Just like the geyser, a lot of your electrical appliances don’t have “holiday” modes, so how about turning them off when you go away. Here’s a list of things that you might benefit from by unplugging them from the wall (especially if your home is in an area prone to lightning storms):

- TV
- Computers and laptops
- Networking equipment like wifi routers, if you use them
- Kitchen appliances like toasters, microwaves, kettles, etc…

Remember, even if something uses a small amount of energy, it all adds up.

- Kettle

This one is an OLD one. But probably the most obvious here. If you’re making coffee for one person, put one and a half cup’s worth of water into the kettle. If you’re making coffee for 2 people, put 2.5 cups of water, etc.

It takes a lot less energy to heat up one cup of water than it does to heat up 4. AND it’s a lot quicker…

- Washing dishes

This is something that’s going around on an energy saving TV advert here in South Africa at the moment. It doesn’t make logical sense, but I thought I would add it anyway because it makes my laziness justified.

Apparently it uses a lot less energy and water to wash dishes in a dish washer than it does using the normal, manual process.

Unbelievable as it sounds, it’s probably if you wash your dishes with the water running to rinse your dishes, and if you stock up the dishwasher until it’s completely full.

So, do you have any other electricity saving tips or tricks?

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2007. | 7 easiest money and energy saving tips at home | 22 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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I’m sure you’ve bought vases or plates etc. and when you get home you struggle to wash off the sticky price tags from the bottom. And, even if you manage to take them off, you sometimes end up with a dirty, stubborn gray sticky bit left.

Well, try using furniture spray.

Spray the sticker and wipe.

It might take a few attempts, but it works. Perhaps there’s a reason it works, and maybe there’s something else that works better (please let us know below), but this works for us.

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2007. | Remove price tags from glass | 3 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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As with the leather care, cleaning the table is a similar 2 step process:

Step 1

The first step is wiping the table down. But, as I mentioned before, you will see scratches quite badly on the dark wood. ESPECIALLY if there is a light just above the table. So make SURE you use a completely clean dust cloth. If you use a cloth that has been used to dust something else, it WILL scratch the table.

Step 2

About once a month we ask our cleaner to wipe the table using a product called “Cobra Touch Specialist Furniture Cream”. I’ll quote the back of the bottle again (it’s just easier).

Cobra Specialist Cream is a unique blend of wax, silicone and mineral oils which brings out and maintains the natural beauty of your wood. This rich creamy polish cleans, nourishes and protects your finest wood furniture. Used regularly Cobra Specialist Cream revives the colour of the grain, adds a brilliant shine, restoring the natural beauty of your wood.

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2007. | Cleaning your wooden dining room table | 3 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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Cleaning leather couches is a 2 step process for us:

Step 1

Dust the couches. I’m sure everybody does this, but it has to be said anyway. This is done every single week. Especially since we have beige coloured leather. It’s preferable that a clean cloth is used to dust the chairs to prevent scratches, though it’s not as noticeable as when cleaning wood.

Step 2

This step involves actually cleaning the leather couches with a product by “Shield” called “Leather Care“. This is only done every second week, and only after step 1 has been completed. I’ll quote the benefits of using “Leather Care” from the back of the bottle:

Shield LEATHER CARE is a water based emulsion that safely cleans and preserves all fine leather and plastic articles i.e. car seats, shoes, handbags, luggage, leather articles, etc.

LEATHER CARE restores and renews materials to their original natural shine. LEATHER CARE contains a UV Protector which guards against cracking, dulling, hardening and fading of finished leather and sealed wood.

Shield LEATHER CARE is non-flammable, non-toxic, non-corrosive, odourless, safe and easy to use.

© James for Make a good house a GREAT home, 2007. | Cleaning Leather Couches | 4 comments. Click here to add yours... |

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