samsonsmom
06-26-2006, 09:10 AM
After developing a nasty ammonia stink issue and browsing past threads to see how others have dealt with it, I've been trying to strip our diapers for the last quite a few hours. Here's what I've done:
1. Diapers had baking soda sprinkled on them in the pail, to keep the stinkies at bay till washing time.
2. Cold prewash to get the bulk of the pee out (poop was mostly blasted off already with the minishower). There was some Dawn in this cycle, because I had some scummy buildup (soap curd, I guess?) on the arm of the machine and around the top of the drum, which I cleaned out with a squirt of Dawn on a scrub brush while the machine was filling.
3. Hot wash with nothing, to see if we got any suds. We got some (probably due to the Dawn in the last cycle), but not a lot.
4. One (I think) cold rinse.
5. Hot wash with quite a bit of detergent (maybe 2/3 capful? we have hard...not very hard, but hard...water), plus a cap and a half of Calgon (the instructions say that you may want to use more than a capful if you have hard water). Quite a bit of suds of course.
6. Cold rinse
7. Two (I think, maybe three) more hot wash cycles with nothing, checking midcycle for suds.
8. I think by now I've done about four additional cold rinses, always checking for suds.
I've been doing all of this on the heavy duty (fast agitation) cycle on my machine, thinking that would do better at loosening the gunk from the dipes.
I'm still getting a think film of suds / scummy looking stuff on the top, which doesn't go away when I stop the agitation. Part of it, I think, is the actual fibers from some of the diapers that have come loose in this whole process.
I feel like I'm killing my diapers, and exhausting the water supply for my county. Should I stop? Or do I need to persist till I don't see anything on the surface?
1. Diapers had baking soda sprinkled on them in the pail, to keep the stinkies at bay till washing time.
2. Cold prewash to get the bulk of the pee out (poop was mostly blasted off already with the minishower). There was some Dawn in this cycle, because I had some scummy buildup (soap curd, I guess?) on the arm of the machine and around the top of the drum, which I cleaned out with a squirt of Dawn on a scrub brush while the machine was filling.
3. Hot wash with nothing, to see if we got any suds. We got some (probably due to the Dawn in the last cycle), but not a lot.
4. One (I think) cold rinse.
5. Hot wash with quite a bit of detergent (maybe 2/3 capful? we have hard...not very hard, but hard...water), plus a cap and a half of Calgon (the instructions say that you may want to use more than a capful if you have hard water). Quite a bit of suds of course.
6. Cold rinse
7. Two (I think, maybe three) more hot wash cycles with nothing, checking midcycle for suds.
8. I think by now I've done about four additional cold rinses, always checking for suds.
I've been doing all of this on the heavy duty (fast agitation) cycle on my machine, thinking that would do better at loosening the gunk from the dipes.
I'm still getting a think film of suds / scummy looking stuff on the top, which doesn't go away when I stop the agitation. Part of it, I think, is the actual fibers from some of the diapers that have come loose in this whole process.
I feel like I'm killing my diapers, and exhausting the water supply for my county. Should I stop? Or do I need to persist till I don't see anything on the surface?