Q for all you vinegar cleaning Mommas!!

[JMS]

How important is it that the white vinegar be undiluted?
I was going to clean out my humidifers and the directions called for undiluted white vinegar. I went to three grocery stores and they all carried diluted white vinegar only. Is it important? If so, where can I buy the undiluted variety?

TIA!

[chlobo]

I bought Heinz distilled vinegar at the grocery store. I also bought a huge bottle at Costco.

[proggoddess]

I think what is from the store is okay. But if you dilute it yourself, it'll take forever for the scale to come off your humidifier. Target sells humidifier cleaner (a different kind of acid, maybe phosphoric?) in a much smaller 1 qt or 1/2 gal. bottle. It works just fine, but it's more expensive than vinegar.

I am in the process of cleaning my humidifiers, too, so I can put them away for the spring. For warm mist humidifiers, it seems to clean faster if you let the heating element turn on for a couple minutes to get the vinegar nice and hot.

[starrynight]

I always buy the diluted vinegar, usually heinz because I know it's made from corn or grain instead of petroleum byproducts. I've never used undiluted or heard of using it.

[kboyle]

ok, i've got a huge jug of vinegar & humidifiers that need to be put away. how much do i use, fill till the line? and just run till the vinegar is gone, or just soak it and not run

help, how do i clean it?

[proggoddess]

If you've lost the manual to your humidifier (like I have), sometimes the web page of the manufacturer has them in PDF form.

For my warm mist, I don't run it continuously with vinegar in it. It's really stinky that way. I just run it to warm up the vinegar (a couple of minutes) then let it soak. It usually takes a few cycles of this with fresh vinegar each time. (Then again, I don't clean it out every week like I'm supposed to, so there's like 1/8" buildup of scale on there.)