LiveIn|LiveOut

Depending on the region where you live, you might have a high amount of chalk in your water. This hard water leads for example to calcified espresso machines and lime scale in kettles and on faucets. So what to do about this? Luckily these lime scale is pretty easy to remove and you don’t need toxic cleaners for that. While almost all of us think about energy efficient lighting and other energy saving opportunities, we tend to miss the problems that toxic cleaners produce. Cleaning those devices eco-friendly has several advantages.

First of all, it’s cheap. Chemical cleaners are way more expensive than the simple materials I will show you. Besides that, we get in close contact with most of the devices that tend to get calcified. In the end, water flows through all of them and in many cases it is drinking water or water that you use to wash clothes, yourself or your children. So it might be a better idea to use green cleaners that are not toxic or skin irritating. Chemical cleaning materials pollute the environment and can lead to serious contamination of groundwater.

So let’s start by decalcifying the faucets on your sinks, your bathtub and your shower in 4 easy steps!

1. Demount all the faucets/shower heads you want to decalcify.
2. Mix vinegar with water at a ratio of 1:20 to get your eco-friendly cleaner.
3. Put your appliances in a big bowl and heat your self-made cleaner in a kettle.
4. Give the mix into the bowl, make sure that everything is covered and leave it overnight at a well-ventilated place.

Yes, that’s it! All lime scale should be removed by this process. One tip in the end: If you use modern water saving shower heads, you can effectively eliminate chalk in your shower because the water is flowing in an optimized way through these showerheads.

If anything is left, repeat the steps above with a slightly higher vinegar concentration of 1:15. Let’s move on to coffee- and espresso-machines.

1. Fill your machine with water.
2. Put one heaped teaspoon of citric acid into the water tank.
3. Let the machine run just like you do when you make coffee.
4. Let the machine run 2 times with just water to remove all residues of the citric acid.

Well, what’s left are kettles, water heaters, egg boilers and basically everything that you use to heat water.

Simply give some citric acid into water and boil it for some time in your device. All lime scale should be easily removed by this procedure.

As you can see, it’s pretty simple to decalcify all your appliances with just the help of vinegar and citric acid. And this cleaners are perfectly eco-friendly and bio-degradable.

For housewives, it is very important to make sure that every place in our house is clean and spot free. Among all the things that we clean, I think we can all agree that the carpet is probably one of the hardest. Imagine cleaning a whole carpeted room. You do not only have to vacuum the entire area thoroughly but you still need to move around all the things just to be thorough and clean every spot. We are quite lucky today since we have the help of technology. However have you ever wondered what the best way to clean carpet is? Below are three of the best methods we have tried.

First one is dry cleaning. This is the do-it-yourself version since carpets as not as mobile as your suits which you can bring to your dry cleaners. All you need here is some quick drying foam purchased from your local hardware store. Spray the foam on your carpet and let it settle for around 20 minutes. Once it is dry, then that is the time to vacuum it away. The foam will act as somewhat a magnet to dirt so when you remove it, the dirt is removed as well. The cost of this is quite cheap but is not as effective as the next one which is hot water extraction.

Hot water extraction uses a machine called a truck-mount unit. This basically has double the power of your normal vacuum cleaner and with a bit of steam cleaning as well to sterilize the area. Normally you can finish your job at half the time when you use this method however the big drawback here is the cost of the machine itself which could cost thousands of dollars. So if you have the money, go for it.

Finally there are some who like the old fashioned hand cleaning method. This might take the longest and require a lot of effort but your cost here is next to nothing. I suggest you ask someone to help you so you can cut your time otherwise you might take around 4 -5 hours to clean an entire room. Just bring your best laundry detergent and start the cleaning. Make sure to dry the entire room though first before allowing anyone to enter as during this time it might get a bit stinky.

So there you have it, these simple methods should serve as a guide for cleaning your carpets it is always best to try to clean a carpet as carpet repair or replacement can be a challenging and expensive. Try out each one and see what you feel is best for you.

How to repair carpet is a question that we all want to know answer to. Everyday in our homes we are faced with small and big mishaps, spillages and stains that make our home look shabby and ill cared for. It is a really good idea to keep our homes looking nice as we spend so much time in them and the smaller stains and spills become more noticeable every time we happen to glance at them. There is nothing worse than not being able to get rid of a stubborn stain or the fact that you have to strategically place a pot plant over a mishap. Carpet cleaning and repair can easily be carried out at home and doesn’t necessarily require a professional with their own carpet repair kit. Therefore, we at LiveIn|LiveOut have put together a short list of some of the most common stains and spills that may come into contact with your carpets and have come up with some easy handy hints to help you shift them from your favorite pile. Carpet repair has never been so easy!

Red wine stains

This is such a common spillage particularly if you are in to holding a fair few parties or indeed if you are a student. Red wine can be a real toughie to get out of a carpet at the best of times especially if you have a plain carpet that will not help to conceal the remnants of the wine stain that a patterned carpet would for instance.

The key to ridding an area of carpet with a red wine stain on it is to catch it immediately, as soon as you have spilt it quickly run to the cupboard and get salt, just simple table salt. Pour as much as you have onto the area (dependent on the amount) you should at least pile it up until it is around one centimeter in height all over the stain. If you have not put on sufficient you will see that the salt will have soaked up the red wine which will bleed into the upper layer of salt. If this is the case pour more on until you no longer see the bleed coming through. Leave this for a few hours to totally absorb the majority of the stain and then vacuum the pile up using the nozzle (so that it doesn’t rub it into the pile of the carpet again). Once you have done this you should have absorbed all, if not most of the red wine. If there is some left white wine is great for cleaning up the rest from the carpet. Generously pour a few eggcups over the area and work into the carpet with a soft cloth. This area, once rid of the red wine will need a good clean with some carpet cleaner and water and this should have sorted out the issue.

Candle wax on your carpet

Carpet repairs can be easy to deal with, dependent on your spillage. Candle wax has always been a contender for one of the most spilled materials in the home. Teenagers love to burn candles in their rooms and even after you ask them nicely to place a saucer under the candle, they usually fail to understand and forget to do so. This results in a pile of unsightly candle wax that has built up onto the carpet and splashed around the surrounding area creating a mess that is only noticed the following day.

Candle wax is a fairly simple one to get out of carpets or indeed any type of material. All you will need is a warm iron and some strong and absorbent kitchen roll. We would recommend that you firstly pick off as much of the wax as you can using your fingers or a blunt knife until you are left with the smallest amount. Once you have done this, then heat up the iron so that is on a warm settling only. Some carpets have plastic properties that will melt under direct heat so it is really important that you ensure that the iron is warm. Then place a few layers of kitchen roll over the wax and gently iron over the top of the roll, you should see that the wax will melt and be absorbed by the kitchen roll. If this is not happening you may need to turn up the heat slightly. Once you have soaked up some of the wax make sure that you put a clean piece on before you have another go, otherwise the wax on the roll will only melt on to the carpet again.

Divets or dents in your carpet

This isn’t so much of a stain or carpet repair as such, but carpet repairs can include the need to get rid of unsightly dents when you have placed a cupboard for years. Simple solution for this one; ice cubes. This may sound daft but it really works! Gently rub an ice cube or two onto the carpet indentation and place a towel over it. Follow with a gentle steam iron over the top of the towel and when you feel the carpet rise stop and fluff it up.