Uses For Vinegar

What comes to your mind when you think of vinegar? Its use in salad dressing, as a cooking ingredient, for pickling and in home canning, isn’t it? If yes, then the various uses of vinegar mentioned below are sure to come as a surprise to you. Do you know that apart from the traditional uses, the utility of vinegar expands to various shores? Right from cleaning mechanical appliances to washing windows, walls and floors to being used in the laundry work, vinegar has been proven to be extremely effective and efficient in varied aspects. To know more about the various household uses for vinegar, read through the following lines.

Different Household Uses Of Vinegar

Vinegar helps in washing no-wax floors. Take half-gallon of warm water and add ½ cup of white distilled vinegar to it.
Rinse the floor with this solution.

Mix a tsp each of liquid detergent and white distilled vinegar in a pint of lukewarm water. Dip a towel in this mixture and rub onto the carpet stain, gently. This would help in removing non-oily stains from carpets.

Vinegar has proven to be efficient in cleaning windows. Mix equal parts of white distilled vinegar and warm water and wash the windows. This would surely make the glass panes gleam.

Painted walls, woodwork and Venetian blinds can be washed efficiently, using vinegar. Mix a cup of ammonia, ½ cup of white distilled or cider vinegar and ¼ cup of baking soda, in a gallon of warm water. Wash the walls with the above mixture.
Vinegar makes it easy to remove the persistent water or alcohol marks on wood. For this, mix equal parts of white distilled vinegar and olive oil and rub over the stained area.

Cleaning a coffee maker would no longer be a difficult task, as vinegar helps dissolve mineral deposits that collect in automatic drip coffee makers. For this, you need to fill the reservoir with white distilled vinegar and run it through a brewing cycle. Thereafter, make sure you rinse it thoroughly.

To clean a microwave, make a solution by mixing 1/4 cup of white distilled vinegar and 1 cup of water in the microwave. Put it in the microwave, in a bowl. Turn on the microwave for 1-2 minutes. It would help loosen the spilled food particles and even deodorize the microwave.

For deodorizing the kitchen drain, take a cup of white distilled vinegar and pour it down the drain once a week. After about half an hour, flush the drain with cold water.

Vinegar makes cleaning refrigerator an easy task. For this, mix equal parts water and white distilled vinegar. Clean the refrigerator using this mixture.

Utensils made from brass, copper and pewter will shine if cleaned with vinegar. For this, take a tsp of salt in a cup of white distilled vinegar and stir in some flour, until it forms a thin paste. Apply this paste on the metal items and keep it for 15 minutes. Thereafter, rinse them with clean water.

To get rid of ants, wash the counter tops, cabinets and floors with white distilled vinegar.

Fruit flies and gnat can be removed, using vinegar. For this, take a bowl and fill it with ½ quart water. In it, add 2 tbsp each of sugar and apple cider vinegar and a couple of drops of dish soap, to attract the fruit flies.

For removing streaks from a stainless steel appliance, take a soft cloth and dip it in vinegar. Rub the appliance with the damp cloth and find the streaks ebbing away.
To get rid of bathtub film, wipe the tub with white distilled vinegar and then with soda. Thereafter, wash the bathtub with clean water.

For killing unwanted grass on sidewalks and driveways, pour concentrated white distilled vinegar on it.

Killing weeds is also made easy with the help of vinegar. For this, just spray concentrated white distilled vinegar on tops of weeds.

Vinegar is useful in increasing soil acidity. Take a gallon of tap water and add a cup of vinegar to it. Now, use it to water the soil. The vinegar would release iron in the soil, for the plants to use.

To keep the pets free from pests, add a tsp of white distilled vinegar in each quart bowl of their drinking water. (One teaspoon in a quart is normally used for a forty-pound animal).