Posted on 01/08/2017 9:18:48 PM PST by Lorianne
It’s a pretty astonishing fact, if you think about it. The government ruined our showers by truncating our personal rights to have a great shower even when we are willing to pay for one. Sure, you can hack your showerhead but each year this gets more difficult to do. Today it requires drills and hammers, whereas it used to just require a screwdriver.
The water pressure in our homes and apartments has been gradually getting worse for two decades. I had to laugh when Donald Trump made mention of this during the campaign. He was challenged to name an EPA regulation he didn’t like. And recall that he is in the hospitality business and knows a thing or two about this stuff.
“You have showers where I can’t wash my hair properly,” he said. “It’s a disaster. It’s true. They have restrictors put in. The problem is you stay under the shower for five times as long."
The pundit class made fun of him, but he was exactly right! This is a huge quality of life issue that affects every American, every day.
It’s not just about the showerhead. The water pressure in our homes and apartments has been gradually getting worse for two decades, thanks to EPA mandates on state and local governments. This has meant that even with a good showerhead, the shower is not as good as it might be. It also means that less water is running through our pipes, causing lines to clog and homes to stink just slightly like the sewer. This problem is much more difficult to fix, especially because plumbers are forbidden by law from hacking your water pressure.
As for the heat of the water, the obsession over “safety” has led to regulations that the top temperature is preset on most water heaters, at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which is only slightly hotter than the ideal temperature for growing yeast. Most are shipped at 110 degrees in order to stay safe with regulators. This is not going to get anything really clean; just the opposite. Water temperatures need to be 140 degrees to clean things. (Looking at the industry standard, 120 is the lowest-possible setting for cleaning but 170 degrees gives you the sure thing.)
The combination of poor pressure and lukewarm temperatures profoundly affects how well your dishwasher and washing machine work. Plus, these two machines have been severely regulated in how much energy they can consume and how much water they can use. Top-loading washing machines are a thing of the past, while dishwashers that grind up food and send it away are a relic. We are lucky now to pull out a glass without soap scum on it. As for clothing, what you are wearing is not clean by your grandmother’s standards. But I haven’t even mentioned what might be the biggest factor in why our clothes aren’t clean and our dishes are dirty. The government forced soap manufacturers to remove from soap the thing that makes them work for these purposes: phosphates. Phosphates, used in soap from the middle ages until the 1980s, break down the soap after it has done its work and allow the water to wash it away along with the dirt and oil it scrubbed out of the clothes.
Now, soaps lack this crucial ingredient. In order to add it back in, you have to go to the paint section of the hardware store and buy it in a box (TSP, the real stuff, not the artificial kind). Add a quarter cup to your wash. You would be amazed at the difference it makes. Things actually get more-or-less clean.
SNIP
We got a reproduction Victorian style high tank toilet from Sunrise Specialty. Thanks to gravity, that thing would suck down a small child who stood too close, and only with a gallon and a half of water. Best of both worlds! Our plumbers were in awe!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post!!! I have been putting up with gray whites for so very long, I thought it was because we moved to an area with hard water but now I see that’s only a fraction of the problem. Need to find me some of that TSP stuff STAT.
My mother got a Westinghouse dryer in 1950. The steel body of the thing was so heavy that if you rapped on it or pounded it with your fist, it made a sound like rapping on a boulder with your knuckles. (The same was true of the body of our 1949 Dodge.) The dryer lasted 19 years.
I will buy some TSP tomorrow at Lowes.
I use baking soda in the laundry to soften the clothes.
I do not have the same static cling prior to using it in the laundry. The Arm & Hammer laundry soap I use for the clothes rinses off better when I use the baking soda. Walmart sells a 4lb box for $2. Use 1/4 or less depending on the hardness of the water.
The white cotton towels do look dingy unless I pre-treat them with OxyClean or Shout etc.
Now I will see if the TSP will whiten them.
I recently replaced the 1.5gal kitchen aerators with a 2.2 gal one that also swivels and with a turn will become a spray. Much much better. Prior to that I replaced the shower head with a much better one that does a great job. I decided what I wanted to get and not some dirty hippy bureaucrat telling me I have to have dirty clothes and weak water pressure.
Hibbent Dual-function 2-Flow Faucet Aerator, 360-Degree Swivel Aerator with Dual Spray, with Gasket Faucet Replacement Part - 15/16 Inch - 27UNS Male Thread - Swivel $11.99
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LCPXAKS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Buy a box of Oxi-Clean Stain Remover, comes in an 8.5 pound box as powder. Toss in a tablespoon (or less) into every wash load. It puts the phosphates back into the soap mix and clothes come out sparkling clean. Last forever. Keep the box tightly closed when not in use, or the powder will tend to cake at the top of the container. If it cakes up, chop at it with a screwdriver or other implement. Oxi-Clean is much safer to handle than TSP.
Vacu-Flush - clears the bowl and sends waste flying at 7 feet/sec. Just keep your hands and feet clear before engaging.
I must update my comment in post# 28. It doesn’t put phosphates in the soap mix. Rather, it creates sodium carbonate (washing soda) and hydrogen peroxide to get the wash load clean. It is safer than TSP because it doesn’t have the harsher chemical base of TSP, which I believe is chlorine based. But Oxi-Clean does work great on getting clothes clean.
$4 at Home Depot. http://www.homedepot.com/p/SAVOGRAN-1-lb-Box-TSP-Heavy-Duty-Cleaner-10621/202935861
Dryers are kind of still ok because it is just a pilot light, wheel and motor. Still bought both a washer and dryer and purchase five full warranty years out of both.
European front load washing machines only have a cold water inlet and heat the water internally to a defined temperature (rather than “hot”) — they can be set as high as about 200 degrees.
Trouble with that is, the tubes they’re running into new houses these day are much smaller than the pipes that ran in houses of the past...so you CAN’T get a good water flow, no matter how much pressure you build up, as the water lines themselves are restricted!
I hate what these bastards have done to this country, just hate them...
Ed
bookmark for later, good info.
Find Sodium Triphosphate (STP), also known as Sodium Tri-polyphosphate (STPP), chemical formula (Na₅P₃O₁₀). Softens water and prevents soils from re-attaching to cleaned surfaces.
https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Tripolyphosphate-1-Lb-Pack/dp/B00IXXP7WM
Ditto!
She does?
Beware, last time I bought some it was TS-noP, but looked the same otherwise.
And just TRY to find a ceiling fan with lights which will provide enough light to see across the kitchen!
Great, isn't it? We added a needle-showerhead, and still looking for one that's the size of a frying pan. :)
When the water in the tank isn’t hot enough, it’s a breeding ground for germs. These are then atomized and delivered to your lungs in your morning shower.
None of the things that the EPA has done have been shown to save anything. Recycling is wasteful, ethanol is a worse pollutant than real gas and it destroys engines, toilets sometimes have to be flushed several times to work properly plus they splash and smell (great for those not-so-clean public toilets), etc. Everything the enviro-whackos touch is made worse for consumers, for efficiency, for health & hygiene, and for the environment. It has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with socialism.
That might be OK for you, but a lot of us in flyover country have our very own sewage treatment plant, called a septic tank. I want the bacteria in my tank to be well fertilized and strong.
Enough with the regulations and let me buy soap that works. The guys on the coasts can be part of the unclean masses.
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