Cleaning with Enzymes, Let Nature do the Hard Work for You!

Today I was in a Clean Trust class for odor control and it reminded me of one of my favorite cleaning technologies.   Enzymes are very powerful and under used cleaning agents.  Enzymes are proteins that are created by living things to break down biological material. We have millions of enzymes in our bodies that cause a chemical catalyst to break down the food we eat.  Plants have enzymes that turn soil into the nutrients needed to grow.  Said a different way, enzymes are naturally occurring chemicals catalysts that accelerate the natural biodegradable or breaking down of organic material.  Because these are natural chemicals they are safe, non toxic, and biodegradable making them very popular in green cleaning.  There is nothing greener than an enzyme based cleaner.

Where enzymes really shine is on removing organic stains and smells such as blood, urine, grass stains, and oil.  The trick in using enzyme based cleaners is to find the right one.  There are literally millions of enzymes and they all work on different organic material.  An enzyme that breaks down oil may not do anything to blood.  As a result most enzyme based cleaners are designed for one specific use only.  There is no such thing as a all purpose enzyme cleaner.  This is why you will often see specialty products for blood, wine, grass stain removal and so on.  A well known example of an enzyme based cleaner is Nature's Miracle which is used on animal urine.

Remember that enzyme based cleaners are causing a biological reaction to take place.  You are biodegrading the organic material.  Biological reactions take time.  You cannot spray an enzyme on and expect instant results.  Read the label carefully because some enzyme based products say to leave it on for minutes, others say hours.  Also remember that you can kill a biological reaction so do not mix chemicals.  If you mix a disinfectant or a sanitizer with a enzyme, you will kill all the biological activity you are trying to create.  I see this all the time when people use Nature's Miracle but then they mix it with bleach and then wonder why it did not work.  The bleach killed all the enzymes and the bacteria created by enzymatic cleaners. 

I recommend most companies invest the time to meet with a professional janitorial distributor and buy some of these products.  You will not normally find these products at retail.  You can buy these one at a time or often these products are sold in a kit with 4 – 8 specialty “stain removers”.  This is not something you need to carry all the time but when you can get the blood stain off the carpet or the urine scent out of the basement that no one else can fix, you will prove yourself to be a true expert.   The great thing is because the way enzymes work, you do not even need to scrub.  Apply the right product.  Leave it alone and let nature take it's course.  Then amaze the customer with your knowledge.

Proper Use of Bases in Cleaning

In a previous post I discussed acids which have a pH of under 7 on the pH scale.  Less well known among cleaners are bases which are chemicals with a pH higher than 7 when dissolved in water.  The reason it is important to understand bases is because they are very common in certain cleaners and they can be extremely dangerous to you and your employees.   This is not to say all dollar store cleaners are bad, in fact about 1/3 of the chemicals I use come from dollar stores.  However in some cases, the savings are not worth the risk to life.  Like acids, the pH scale works on a logarithmic scale meaning each point on the scale is based on a multiplier of 10.  A slightly higher number is a much stronger base. 

Bases are often used in de-greasers and oven cleaners.  Bases work great in these products for two reasons.  First, strong bases break down organic matter such as foods and greases.  Second, when a strong base is mixed with a fat it turns the fat into soap - literally turning the thing we are trying to get rid of into an agent that helps clean.  Old fashioned soap is made by combining lye which is a strong base with a pH of 13 with fats such as lard and vegetable oils.  http://www.ehow.com/how_2027286_make-soap.html

So this sounds great.  A base will turn fat into soap.  We should use them all the time, right?  Well the problem with bases is they are very dangerous.  Most people understand acids are dangerous because if you spill them on your skin, they hurt.  Many common bases used in cleaning do not cause pain immediately when they come into contact with skin.  However they can cause serious chemical burns without physical pain until it is too late.  Remember bases break down organic matter which includes skin, bone, and muscle.  A base can be absorbed through the skin and it turns body fat into soap.  While this is not deadly it is EXTREMELY painful because the only treatment is to let the body break down and absorb the soap in the body over time.  If you ever got soap in a cut imaging have a bar of it under your skin... for a week.  

Because bases are cheap and effective you will often find them in in-expensive oven cleaners.  There are other safer ways to clean an oven than using a strong base but they are more expensive.  There are many cases when low cost cleaners make sense but oven cleaners is not one of them.  To prove my point, I am going to tell you to share information off the MSDS sheets to show the difference.  Below are  excerpts from Easy Off and a cheaper generic oven cleaner's MSDS sheets.

Easy Off Oven Cleaner pH 12.25

Rated level 2 by OSHA meaning - Temporary or minor injury may occur.

Generic Oven and Grill Cleaner pH 13.8  (remember 14 is as high as it goes)

Rated level 3 by OSHA meaning – Major or permanent injury likely unless prompt action is taken and medical treatment is given.  The MSDS sheet says also says to use a respirator, goggles without air vents, gloves rated for level 3 chemicals, and skin cream on any exposed skin. 

The Generic Oven and Grill Cleaner does a great job cleaning ovens.  It tears through even the worst ovens and if you ever used it you probably wondered why anyone would pay five to six times more for Easy Off.  Well this is the answer.  A base this strong can cause terrible damage to you and those that work for you.  It is not worth the $4.00 saved to take the risk.  This can cause life changing injuries to who ever uses it and unacceptable liabilities to you as the employer.

Tech Tuesday: Acid Cleaners and How to Use Them

We all know which cleaners work and which cleaners don't work but we don't always know we why. We often learn through trial and error. Understanding the science will help us understand if a new cleaner will deliver on its promises without risking damage to a customer's home. Also the ability to explain why a product works separates us from our competition by showing that we are true professionals with training and knowledge. In fact the topic of today's article, acids and how to use them, was the reason I won a large contract as the sole cleaning contractor for an apartment complex with over 450 units.

Most people understand what an acid is even if they don't understand the technical definition. However understanding the pH scale is important because it tells you how strong an acid is. The pH scale goes from 0 to 14. Any chemical that has a pH less than 7 (when dissolved in water) is an acid. The lower the pH number, the stronger the acid. The pH scale is logarithmic which is a fancy way of saying each point on the pH scale means the acid is 10 times stronger than the next number on the scale. So a cleaner with a pH of 1 is not slightly more strong than a cleaner with a pH of 2, it is 10 times stronger.

Acids are very useful in cleaning, especially in bathrooms. Soap scum has many things in it but in most cases it is calcium or limestone which is dissolved in tap water. As the water dries on the bath walls it leaves behind a small amount of limestone and calcium which builds up over time. Soap scum is not soap at all, in most cases it is a layer of stone made up of these two ingredients on the bathroom surfaces. This is why it is so hard to remove with normal cleaners. It is like trying to clean a rock and wondering why it is still a looks like a rock after you scrub it. The only really effective way to remove soap scum is to use an acid. Acid will dissolve the soap scum into liquid or a gas. Think of your elementary school volcanoes. Vinegar is an acid (pH 3) and when mixed with baking soda the baking soda is dissolved and/or turned to a gas. Acids do the same thing to soap scum. This is also why you need to leave soap scum remover on the surface for a while before you remove it. You need to give the acid time to work. This is also why most toilet bowl cleaner are acids. Acids remove those hard water rings and rust, although rust is whole other discussion.

While acids do a great job removing soap scum they also can do damage to some natural stone and metals like chrome. Most bathroom fixtures are chrome plated because chrome is a very durable and water resistant product. However chrome has one very serious weakness, acid. Acid will eat the chrome plating. The stronger the acid and the cheaper (thinner) the chrome plated fixture, the faster this damage will occur. It is very important that you understand the pH level of your cleaner because they all say they remove soap scum but the lower the pH the better the job it will do removing the soap scum but also the more likely the product will damage chrome. All bathroom cleaners make claims like “powers through soap scum” but these claims don't really tell you anything. The pH of the product does not lie. The best way to learn the pH of any product is to go online and get the MSDS sheet which will tell you the pH of the product. Below are a few examples of common cleaners used by residential cleaners and their pH:

Comet Bathroom Cleaner – pH 3.0 (active ingredient citric acid)

Lime Away - pH 2.0 (active ingredient phosphoric acid)

Works Toilet Bowl Cleaner – pH less than 1.0 (active ingredient hydrochloric acid)

Remember the pH scale works on factor of 10 so Lime Away is 10 times stronger than Comet Bathroom Cleaner and Works Toilet Bowl Cleaner is 100 times stronger than Comet Bathroom Cleaner. If you have ever cleaned a really nasty bathroom with years of soap scum you have probably used a toilet bowl cleaner on it and seen how it eats the scum right off in seconds. If you got the cleaner on the chrome you also probably bought your client some new fixtures.

So back to my story from the beginning. I was called to bid on cleaning apartments and common areas for a complex with over 450 units. The previous company had been doing a great job cleaning the units but they kept damaging the chrome in the kitchen and bathroom. The owner of the service kept trying different cleaners but she kept having the same problem. When they told me this I explained the reason why this was happening was because the complex was using very cheap fixtures with super thin chrome plating. As a result even very low acid cleaners (like Lime Away and CLR) that were safe in 99.9% of residences would damage their chrome. The solution was to either buy a better fixture (no chance) or to make sure we only used cleaners with a pH higher than 3 on chrome. When I explained this to them I won the contract right then and there. They had been spending thousands of dollars on new chrome fixtures and sinks. I was able to explain to them not only how I could fix the problem but I also helped them make a list of cleaners which they could give to the residents to use. This separated us from all the other bidders (that had no idea what went wrong) and the owner of the previous company that by all accounts did a great job and tried every cleaner in the grocery store but could not make the client happy.