I need to descale my coffee machine. How do I do that?
I usually just run vinegar through it every once in a while and then run a few pots of just water to get rid of any residual vinegar. Beware, it’ll make the house smell like vinegar for the rest of the day.
Might want to try citric or lactic acid instead at a proper dilution.
White vinegar works, or you can pick up “sour salt” in the Kosher section, which is citric acid and since you don’t need much the rest is handy as a substitute for lemon juice. Dilute with plenty of water, run the machine, it removes calcium deposits.
what if i want some tasty calcium in my diet
Oh, that kind has microplastics mixed up in it, and it slows down the coffee maker. You want tasty calcium you’re going to absorb properly, try this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004KWGHCO
(Just the easiest link for a description, not pushing Amazon)
Good call. I was going to suggest citric acid. It’s what we use for our electric kettle.
Read the manual. It might have a descale mode that pushes some descaling chemical through the pipes without heating it.
Source: I did it like a month ago. The water that came out was quite pulpy.
I cannot describe the expression I made at the word “pulpy” but “horrified” is probably as close as I’ll ever get.
It’s best not to think about the non-water stuff that exists in the water pipes. I once had to open up our 200-litre water heater (which supplies the entire house) to replace the heater coil, and now have to live with the knowledge of what, and how much of it, was inside. “Ignorance is bliss” couldn’t be more accurate.
By Darwin, so much this. If somebody could actually convey the insane amount of work and responsibility that is heaped upon your shoulders when you start having children and running a home, you’d never grow up.
Whatever load you think you’re carrying as a teen - it’s not as much as you think.
See all the maintenance and tracking of physical portions of my adult life are fine. I have plenty of space to remember what devices need what servicing or care, to pay attention to changes in performance or observe wear.
But the cultural and societal stuff is like voodoo magic to me. Surplus cash in escrow, down deposits, and HELOCs, heck even cultural gossip as a standard of conversation. Nah doesn’t do anything for me.
Ask me to manage my physical existence and I can do so indefinitely without complaints. It’s the imaginary adult stuff that is beyond me.
Fuck, I gotta descale my espresso machine too. Thanks for the reminder
Screw that, I’ll descale it when it refuses to work due to he built in descale timer! Not anytime before!
I completely agree. If you make thoughtful decisions and stay dedicated, you can reach a point in life where you can start to slow down and enjoy the fruits of your labor. My plan, for example, is to reduce to a four-day workweek once my house is paid off, so I can spend more quality time with the people I care about most. Life requires both hard work and a bit of luck to truly succeed, but with persistence and determination, it’s possible to shape the life you want.
Slowly increasing responsibilities?
Wow imagine having the privilege of a childhood
Unfortunately, my fucking coffee machine tells me, very insistently that it’s time to descale. I usually hold out against its demands for a good couple months though.
And where’s the list? Like if I could just find a list of like, “Congratulations on being a homeowner, do all this shit because if you don’t the repairs will eat you alive” it would be handy.
Just follow Martha Stewart’s website, you’ll find there are several thousand hours worth of chores you should be doing weekly!
That’s a rough one. I know a good place to start is anything large you buy, make sure you read the maintenance portion of the manual and make a couple notes.
Then I start asking myself about important things like "how do I make sure the plumbing doesn’t get fucked? " or “how do I make sure the furnace doesn’t die?” and I start googling.
Not a great answer but it helps. I recently realized I didn’t give much of a thought to well pump maintenance and I’ve been down a massive rabbit hole on that one. I feel like you just pick one thing at a time and work on it and you learn as you go.
I just moved to a place with a well last year. I’m generally pretty handy but the whole well system is basically a black box to me at this point.
I’d ask you questions but frankly I’m not ready to absorb the information, but I know I’m gonna need to sooner or later. Probably sooner, it’s still the original pump from 1977.
It took us years to compile the list and it’s paid for itself many times over.
But to jump start the list in a future place, especially a traditional house, I’ve considered hiring a housing inspector or general contractor to give us a walkthrough of key maintenance timelines. Many things could be decades away but easy to forget until it’s a much bigger job. Notes from that interaction would essentially be the bones of “the list.”
My house has bones!? I’m definitely out of my depth…
You don’t refill the bone marrow? You’re fucked pal
We can’t let them find my husband’s bones!
Almost everything in your house has a manual. The furnace, the ac, the water heater, the water softener, the coffee maker, the fridge… they all have manuals. If the people before you weren’t responsible and you don’t have a packet of manuals somewhere, go through everything and download them. They all say exactly how to do maintenance for each thing, and how often.
Other than that it’s mostly looking around and making sure nothing is actively being eaten. Take a flashlight and look around in the attic and basement or crawl space or whatever your can’t normally see and make sure things aren’t moldy or rotting. If you catch things earlier it’s always cheaper and easier.
Honestly that sounds like an excellent post in a handyman type of community for compiling a list!
This might have made a good category of thing for me to post back when I made r/ArtisanVideos! Can’t believe I didn’t think of it in the 11 years before Reddit banned me.
Why am I in this picture and why does it hurt so much. ALso it’s bEen 1 monTh and 12 DAys siNCe I DEscaLEd mY coFFee maChiNE.
Thank God my water supply is reasonably soft. Never had to descale my kettle.
Thank your lucky stars you’ve never had to descale a toilet…
Well to be fair, you shouldn’t have climbed up that toilet in the first place…
No way. Do you pour vinegar everywhere you can see?
Either that or a pumice stone on a stick and elbow grease!
You have to clean it regularly using a cleaner that descales.
Being a functional adult is essentially self parenting. It’s cheaper to clean and maintain than to constantly buy new or neglect issues until they snowball. Easier said than done, it’s definitely not always easy but worth the time.
While I completely agree, maintaining your items will make them last much longer, I feel the degradation of quality over the years works so much against us. Many items are made these days to not be able to be fixed. Sometimes a digital display or button breaking can brick a well taken care of item. No matter how well you take care of clothes and furniture like your grandparents did, that particle board will fail and that fast fashion shirt will pill. Even high end brands have gone down in quality significantly, so investing more in something you think you trust can still be frustrating. It’s so much energy to figure out what you should invest in vs buy cheaper.
Yeah, the only problem is, only now I’m starting to realize some things. I’m 53 - but hey, it’s never too late…
Uh-oh…
Clean your dishwasher filter.
More importantly, clean your dishwasher vent.
If you didn’t know it had a vent, enjoy cleaning out that mold.
Wait what
I just cleaned the filter last week (rental) and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for centuries
You’re saying there’s another thing in there that’s just as dirty that I didn’t clean??
Dishwashers typically (meaning I guess there may be some that don’t) have a way for the warm moist air to vent out of it. Usually in the door, and typically “hidden” on the outside to match the aesthetic.
Inside however, there is usually a more obvious way for air to escape. On my current dishwasher for instance, it’s just a removable grate at the top of the door that sits flush with the door interior itself. It’s set up in such a way that air can get through it, but not water from the cleaning cycles (since that would obviously be quite detrimental to the kitchen overall.)
Now if you think about what I just described, a small dark area with plenty of warm moist air flowing through it each time you run your dishwasher, protected from the cleaning agents and harsh spray of water, you’ll likely come to the quick realization… this is the perfect place for unwanted things to grow.
Ohh! Ok that makes more sense. For some reason i was imagining an outdoor dryer vent. Thank you
Wat
You’re not my mom, you can’t tell me what to do.
Well I am a mom, so I’ve learned it’s a lot less disgusting if you do it every month, but you don’t have to listen to me.
I know it’s gross, I do it often because I can see the difference in the cleanliness of the dishes.
I was just jesting.
Holy shit, if anyone ever does figure out how to predict my emotional cycles I want to hear about it.
I’m a guy, I’ll sign up too
Anyone selling snake oil around here? Shut up and take my money
Clean your dryer vent
THAT you should be doing every time you use the dryer, dishwasher is once a month type of thing
Not the trap. The vent.
How often?
“Ever” would be a lot more often than most people.
Once per fire.
Just googled it, uh oh
Relatively lucky in this respect. The apartment where I live has a company do this twice a year so at most all I have to do is every month or so disconnect it from the vent hose and suck it out with a vacuum.
Mine is literally under the deck. Along with a water spigot. I don’t think they made the best choices building this deck…
Former deck owner here: Decks were another way for our forefuckers to waste our futures in the 80’s.
Wipe the gasket on your laundry machines
This one got us the other day. My wife was panicking that the washer was leaking. Turns out never wiping the dog hair off the gasket cloggs the weeps holes and it starts to drip onto the floor
If equipped, clean out your detergent/softener dispensors. Most pop out, but some may need a screw or two removed.
Also, some washers have a sump filter that needs cleaning. (little panel at the bottom-left of the front on Samsungs)
I have a bi-monthly calendar reminder for the Samsung filter. 3 dogs means that thing is constantly packed with hair and we get the dreaded filter error code if it’s not cleaned regularly.
Change your furnace air filter
About a month ago…
When you learn minimalists weren’t actually about the looks but about keeping stupid adult responsibilities on the low.
Yes!
Wife was saying big, far away houses are getting cheaper and we should buy and retire there. Nope, the more space the bigger the mess she’ll do. Can’t literally take 2 steps further to drop whatever it’s in her hand. I have a dozen reading glasses spread through the house, usually accumulating at a few preferred places.
Case in point: I replaced my coffee machine with a chemex. So much easier to maintain.
I use a phin filter.
I just eat the beans. Nothing to maintain
I eat the dirt the coffee grows in and suntan my butthole. No relation to the topic at hand, just thought you should know.
How do you keep your butt cheeks spread during the tanning process? Asking for a friend.
I have a glass buttplug with a handle of sorts that pushes the cheeks apart. It’s non UV resistant so does not interfere with the tanning. On the plus side, the interior of the rectum&anal cavity also get tanned with the glass transmitting the light.
Wouldn’t a clear, plastic, speculum oris, be better, and not run the change of curved/pointed glass focusing light in dangerous ways?
For anyone else who doesn’t know what a chemex is and can’t be arsed to google it:
I just drink instant coffee
V60 is even easier to clean
Can’t beat $6 melitta plastic cone. Unbreakable, and pour straight into cup so less things to wash.
Btw doesn’t v60 made of heavy, fragile ceramic make the water cold? Plastic is cheaper and better, change my mind.
https://shoponline.melitta.com/products/1-cup-pour-over-coffee-brew-cone-black
I use a plastic v60
Yep, I mentioned to my mum a few times that I’m ‘baking’ in my microwave, which I know is terrible for this task. So, she’ll tell me I should be getting an oven, I should be getting an air fryer etc. etc… I always tell her, I don’t have the space for it, but really, I don’t want to be cleaning yet another appliance.
I have an oven that’s also a microwave and can also cook with a special pan. It’s also smaller than a normal oven, so it’s closer to an air fryer and heats up really quickly
