By Jason Fitzpatrick, Lifehacker – July 15, 2010 at 09:30AM
If you have some bulky items that need a thorough cleaning—lawn chairs, outdoor gear, Craigslist finds not treated with care—but lack a power washer to scrub them with, your local car wash can help.
Over at the home and design blog Apartment Therapy they purchased a set of sinks off Craigslist that were significantly dirtier than they expected. The sinks were so dirty they were afraid they’d have to spend a whole day getting them degreased and cleaned up. Their creative solution cut the cleanup time down from hours to minutes.
We ran across this pair of restaurant sinks on Craigslist and we were warned that they were dirty. We assumed your normal light coating of grease like many of the other restaurant finds we’ve come across lately, but when we arrived, we were in for quite a surprise.
This pair of sinks has to have sat no more than 2 inches from a fryer in its previous life as it was coated with a ridiculous amount of grease, food chunks and other things we cared not to identify. Knowing it would take us hours of work to clean this at home, we stopped off at our local car wash to hose them down.
Who knew engine and tire cleaner would get them so shiny? Sure we received odd looks, but it worked like a champ and the light misting from the water was much appreciated when temperatures were over 100 degrees! You can use the same technique on tables and chairs that are covered in mud and debris, outdoor furniture if you don’t want to buy a pressure washer (though you’ll want to take a sand bag to hold them down so they don’t get blown away by the pressure), and other solid surfaces.
It’s a very practical solution, especially for people who don’t own pressure washers with detergent tanks. We’d recommend going at an off time so you don’t frustrate customers trying to actually wash their cars and to pack your stuff up and go as soon as you’re done with the equipment. Nearly all self-serve car washes have rules against lingering in the stall to detail clean after you’ve finished using their equipment—and are no longer paying to use the stall.
Have a tip or trick related to cleaning up really dirty or bulky items? Let’s hear about it in the comments.