# ammonia is pretty lousy degreaser



## pman6 (Jul 11, 2012)

You know that sticky grease that builds up on hard surfaces in the kitchen?

Well I tried straight ammonia from home depot and it doesn't do squat to the sticky grease.

What cuts through it like butter is wd40 or cooking oil, with very little elbow grease. It cuts on contact.

I haven't bought any TSP yet, but will TSP cut through sticky grease on contact the same way wd40 does?

There are 2 kinds of grease in the kitchen. One sticky, one not sticky.


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## ToolSeeker (Sep 19, 2012)

Try crud cutter or Dirtex and no TSP is not the answer it will cause more problems than it will solve.


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## pman6 (Jul 11, 2012)

well I need to cut the grease first. If TSP is powerful enough to do that, I can wash off the residue afterwards.

So far, I have not found a decent product for kitchen grease. Krud Kutter, simple green. Nothing works well because they dry off the walls before they can act.

I know if you soak something in a bowl of krud kutter or simple green for 2 days, it gets all the grease off. it's hard to do the same on painted walls.

But holy cow, vegetable oil works great, but puts a fresh layer of grease over everything, which you can ideally wash off with Dawn.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

pman6 said:


> well I need to cut the grease first. If TSP is powerful enough to do that, I can wash off the residue afterwards.
> 
> So far, I have not found a decent product for kitchen grease. Krud Kutter, simple green. Nothing works well because they dry off the walls before they can act.
> 
> ...


I've found Simple Green to be quite effective at removing cooking oil grease build-up.

Cleaning is a science. You need to know what it is that you're trying to remove in order to figure out the best way to remove it. What you have on your kitchen walls is a mixture of cooking oil and animal fats from years of frying bacon and/or other kinds of food in cooking oil. Restaurants that fry hamburger all day long have powered vents over their grilles to blow the fat/oil fumes outside. Otherwise their kitchens would be covered in cooking oil grease.

The most effective thing I've found to remove cooking oil grease is mineral spirits; (aka: "paint thinner"). But, be careful about taking too much off. If you have wood doors on your kitchen cupboards, and it's an older house, it's very possible that you have real varnish on those doors. Real varnish was made by dissolving plant resins (called "copals") in drying oils like linseed oil or Tung oil. Those plant oils (linseed and Tung oil) are chemically very similar to corn oil or other cooking oils and even animal fats.

There's an saying in chemistry: "Like dissolves like." That means if you want to dissolve dirt, you need to use a solvent that's chemically similar to the dirt you're wanting to dissolve. It also means that the cooking oils and bacon fats that were deposited on varnish would have partially dissolved in that varnish. So, using mineral spirits to remove the grease may also start removing the varnish. If you find that your varnished doors look dull after cleaning them with mineral spirits, use a "wiping" polyurethane like MinWax's "Wipe-On" polyurethane (comes in both satin and gloss) on the fronts of the cupboard doors to restore the gloss of the cabinetry.

And, I'd try Simple Green again. I find it works well at removing cooking oil grease build-up. I use Simple Green to clean the kitchen ceiling fans in apartments when tenants vacate.

TSP:

PLEASE do not use TSP to clean any *varnished* wood cupboard doors in your kitchen. It will etch the gloss on those doors making them look dull. My understanding is that TSP will not dull the gloss of polyurethane, so if you're unsure if you have varnish or polyurethane on your wood doors, proceed with caution.

I've seen statements on the internet that TSP is an excellent degreaser. That is misinformation. TSP is a poor cleaning agent in every respect. The only reason it was used for cleaning walls for years is that it would etch the gloss of "drying oil" paints (like linseed and Tung oil based paints) and that would result in the new coat of paint sticking better. Using TSP on varnished cupboard doors would etch the gloss of those doors and then you'd have to give them a coat of Wipe-On Poly to restore the gloss.

TSP doesn't etch the gloss of latex paints, and so there's no point in using it to clean latex paint before repainting with another paint. Still, ignorance is fertile ground for misinformation to grow, and many paint "experts" still tell people to clean latex paint with TSP before painting over it. This is simply lousy advice borne out of a lack of knowledge about TSP.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> PLEASE do not use TSP to clean any *varnished* wood cupboard doors in your kitchen. It will etch the gloss on those doors making them look dull. My understanding is that TSP will not dull the gloss of polyurethane, so if you're unsure if you have varnish or polyurethane on your wood doors, proceed with caution.


That was a mistake. If you have wooden kitchen cupboard doors, regardless of whether there's varnish or polyurethane on them, there's no reason to be using TSP to clean them. All TSP will do is make them dull if they're varnished.


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

What strength was your ammonia? If it was too weak it was not alkaline enough to react with the grease. Otherwise its a fact of nature: alkalines react with fats to dissolve them and produce soap


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Journeyman Brian is correct; the process is called "saponification".

However it may be that ammonia normally isn't alkaline enough to cause that reaction to occur. Oven cleaner definitely is alkaline enough.


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## pman6 (Jul 11, 2012)

Easy-off oven cleaner definitely takes off the grease, but is too harsh for most surfaces.

I sprayed some on the cabinets, and it took off some of the finish.


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## klaatu (Mar 9, 2015)

I worked in a fried chicken restaurant for years. After a few weeks of cleaning with simple green, there would develop a hard coating of grease on the stainless steel vent hoods that the Simple green wouldn't touch. The only thing that would cut through all that grease to clean the vent hoods was ammonia. Straight up. Don't be surprised if the ammonia you bought at Home depot is mixed with water. Should say on the bottle somewhere.

I've seen cheap chlorine bleach in stores that was only a 25% solution to keep the price down. It only said it was a 25% solution in small print on the back of the label.


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## fireguy (May 3, 2007)

Sodium Hydroxide (lye)is the best animal fat degreaser. But there are some drawbacks. It also dissolve the fat in your fingers, making it difficult to hold on to things, like glassware. It also dries out the skin, by removing the oils. When it is put into a spray bottle, it makes breathing difficult. It also dulls paint and other decorative coatings. It removes bugs from windshields and it will etch glass. It is used to remove finishes from decks and other wood products, but it also removes the lingen and makes wook fuzzy.

Bad stuff, but it is a great degreaser. 

We use 97% pure beads, mixed to saturation to remove grease from commercial kitchen exhaust systems.


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

the bottle of ammonia i used on my bathtub last week was 25% strength, I diluted it to max 0.5%, it still was quite pungent to the nose, and worked well on the grime.

The bottle recommends 1.25% for prepping zinc.


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## klaatu (Mar 9, 2015)

fireguy said:


> Sodium Hydroxide (lye)is the best animal fat degreaser. But there are some drawbacks. It also dissolve the fat in your fingers, making it difficult to hold on to things, like glassware. It also dries out the skin, by removing the oils. When it is put into a spray bottle, it makes breathing difficult. It also dulls paint and other decorative coatings. It removes bugs from windshields and it will etch glass. It is used to remove finishes from decks and other wood products, but it also removes the lingen and makes wook fuzzy.
> 
> Bad stuff, but it is a great degreaser.
> 
> We use 97% pure beads, mixed to saturation to remove grease from commercial kitchen exhaust systems.


It can also be used to clear hair clogs from tub drains.


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## klaatu (Mar 9, 2015)

JourneymanBrian said:


> the bottle of ammonia i used on my bathtub last week was 25% strength, I diluted it to max 0.5%, it still was quite pungent to the nose, and worked well on the grime.
> 
> The bottle recommends 1.25% for prepping zinc.


I think most readily available ammonias are 25%. Most of the time that is as strong as you would need. Also, any stronger and it starts getting kind of dangerous for the average person to use.


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## klaatu (Mar 9, 2015)

fireguy said:


> Sodium Hydroxide (lye)is the best animal fat degreaser. But there are some drawbacks. It also dissolve the fat in your fingers, making it difficult to hold on to things, like glassware. It also dries out the skin, by removing the oils. When it is put into a spray bottle, it makes breathing difficult. It also dulls paint and other decorative coatings. It removes bugs from windshields and it will etch glass. It is used to remove finishes from decks and other wood products, but it also removes the lingen and makes wook fuzzy.
> 
> Bad stuff, but it is a great degreaser.
> 
> ...


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

fireguy said:


> Sodium Hydroxide (lye)is the best animal fat degreaser. But there are some drawbacks. It also dissolve the fat in your fingers, making it difficult to hold on to things, like glassware. It also dries out the skin, by removing the oils. When it is put into a spray bottle, it makes breathing difficult. It also dulls paint and other decorative coatings. It removes bugs from windshields and it will etch glass. It is used to remove finishes from decks and other wood products, but it also removes the lingen and makes wook fuzzy.
> 
> Bad stuff, but it is a great degreaser.
> 
> We use 97% pure beads, mixed to saturation to remove grease from commercial kitchen exhaust systems.


The degreasing effect is due to the reaction (saponification, as Nestor mentioned). Should be the same with any base (alkaline).


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

btw "lye" apparently refers to any strong alkaline solution. I just looked it up, because in German the word "Lauge" (lye) is another word for an alkaline.

Ever had a "lye" pretzel? German: Laugenbrezel

i think theyre turned brown by chemical corrosion


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## pman6 (Jul 11, 2012)

klaatu said:


> Don't be surprised if the ammonia you bought at Home depot is mixed with water. Should say on the bottle somewhere.



I wouldn't be surprised. It didn't have that strong of an odor.

Surely at $1.50, it's gotta be watered down. 
Must be why I couldn't cut grease effectively


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

I've had better luck with 409.

If your problem is like I think, you need to hit it with 2-3 different products.

409 To get the main part off. Ammonia for the rest...follow up with stainless steel cleaner.


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## mathmonger (Dec 27, 2012)

I was painting a room where some kid had stuck scotch tape all over. Cheap old scotch tape. I tried picking at it, but it would just break as soon as I started to pull it off. 

I bought these yesterday and happened to have them in the truck:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Scotch-Brite-Heavy-Duty-Industrial-Strength-Scour-Pad-88HD-CC/100584162

They are monsters. I just scrubbed the tape off with plain water. :thumbsup:

The secret to cleaning any kind of grime is a combination of the right chemical, the right concentration, the right temperature, the right dwell time, the right scrubber, and the right amound of pressure. If you mess up on any of those, you could damage the substrate or just fail to get it clean.


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## Arlo (Jan 17, 2008)

About a month ago I saw a cleaning tip on Pinterest to clean grates from a gas stove. I put each grate in a plastic bag and poured ammonia in the bag and let the bags sit in the garage over night. The caked on grease or whatever black stuff dissolved with a minimal wipe with a paper towel. The bottle of ammonia was purchased for $1 at a $1 store. I'm not sure if it was watered down but it sure smelled strong.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

mathmonger said:


> I bought these yesterday and happened to have them in the truck:
> 
> http://www.homedepot.com/p/Scotch-Br...D-CC/100584162
> 
> They are monsters. I just scrubbed the tape off with plain water. :thumbsup:



You can get those pads cheap at any place listed under Machine Shop Supplies in your yellow pages phone directory. Machine shops use them for polishing metal they turn in lathes. Also, 3M makes them in about 5 different grades of "aggressiveness" for polishing different kinds of metal (aluminum, brass, steel, etc.).

I was told that the machinist would first do the machining on the lathe, and then use a Scotchbrite pad held in the hand to polish the piece. That seems potentially dangerous to me, but that's what I was told about how they're used.


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

Arlo said:


> About a month ago I saw a cleaning tip on Pinterest to clean grates from a gas stove. I put each grate in a plastic bag and poured ammonia in the bag and let the bags sit in the garage over night. The caked on grease or whatever black stuff dissolved with a minimal wipe with a paper towel. The bottle of ammonia was purchased for $1 at a $1 store. I'm not sure if it was watered down but it sure smelled strong.


thats like the trick where you put dirty coins in coke and let them sit overnight[emoji14]


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## mathmonger (Dec 27, 2012)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> I've found Simple Green to be quite effective at removing cooking oil grease build-up.


I thought you were a Mr. Clean guy.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

mathmonger said:


> I thought you were a Mr. Clean guy.


I actually like Mr. Clean as a detergent.

Different detergents are formulated to emulsify different kinds of soils. My understanding is that Simple Green is formulated to remove petroleum based oils, like engine oil and hydrocarbon based greases. Dish washing detergent is formulated to emulsify cooking oils (like corn oil) and animal fats (like bacon grease). Even through the oil that collects on a kitchen ceiling around the ceiling fan grille are generally cooking oils and animal fats, I find that Simple Green works well to clean those fans, grilles and painted ceiling around the fan. Also, I like the fact that Simple Green doesn't form a soap foam on top of the cleaning solution the way dish washing detergents do. I lack the patience to keep rinsing out a bucket to get ALL of the soap out of it so that I don't see a soap foam on top of the water with each rinsing with clean water. With Simple Green, there's no stubborn soap foam.

I use Mr. Clean for two important applications. I use it to machine scrub floors with my floor machine and a blue pad, and I use it in my carpet shampoo'er to clean carpets. There are companies that make specialized detergents for cleaning floors and shampoo'ing carpets, but I find that Mr. Clean does a good a job, and I'd rather just keep a few plastic jugs on my storage room shelf instead of a dozen or more (if I bought a different product for every kind of surface I clean).

On walls, I just use a damp Magic Eraser. I have yet to find a product that works better for removing marks from painted walls. Depending on the mark, I sometimes dampen the Magic Eraser with some CLR cleaning acid, and that helps remove stubbor marks, especially well from oil based paints.


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

so do detergents work differently than soaps and other alkaline cleaners?

A detergent emulsifies, i.e. makes fat mixable with water. But ammonia actually reacts with the fats. I dont know if soap works by saponification or by emulsifying or something.

but ammonia def. works by saponification


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

JourneymanBrian said:


> so do detergents work differently than soaps and other alkaline cleaners?
> 
> A detergent emulsifies, i.e. makes fat mixable with water. But ammonia actually reacts with the fats. I dont know if soap works by saponification or by emulsifying or something.
> 
> but ammonia def. works by saponification


JourneymanBrian:

The difference between a "soap" and a "detergent" is that soaps are made from animal fats or vegetable oils (notably Palm oil and Olive oil) by the saponification process. That is, soaps are made from natural products. The animal fats or vegetable oils are mixed with a strong alkali like caustic soda, and the result is the formation of soap and glycerine. In that saponification process, each soap molecule has a sodium ion at the end of it, and it's the attraction of that sodium ion to polar water molecules that gives the soap it's solubility in water.

Detergents are made from chemicals in a lab, not natural products. Because detergents are man-make chemicals, they can be formulated so that they have polar groups on the ends of the molecules that remain attracted to polar water molecules all the time. Consequently detergents aren't affected by hardness ions in water.

When soap is used with hard water, the result is soap scum. Soap scum is really nothing more than soap that has lost it's solubility in water. And the reason for this is because the hardness ions in water are typically Calcium++ ions. Magnesium++ ions, Iron++ ions and Iron+++ ions. What happens is that these hardness ions replace the sodium+ ion at the end of a soap molecule, so that you have TWO soap molecules connected at their ends to a single Calcium++ ion or Magnesium ++ ion. Alternatively, you can also have THREE soap molecules all connected to a single Iron+++ hardness ion. What that does is hide the hardness ion between two or three molecules that otherwise have no interest in dissolving in water. The results are soap scum molecules that precipitate out of the water and stick to the sides of your bathtub or bathroom sink.

You can actually drive the chemical reaction that created soap scum in a backwards direction. By cleaning soap scum with oven cleaner or lye or caustic soda or NaOH, you introduce a whole bunch of Na+ ions into the soap scum, and that imbalance drives the chemical reaction the other way. The plentiful number of Na+ ions results in the soap scum molecules breaking down to form soap molecules again. And, the soap molecules disappear in the water of the oven cleaner because they're soluble in water. So, next time try cleaning your bathtub with oven cleaner and you'll get it clean as a drill sargeant's whistle.

Because detergents are made in a lab, they can be formulated to have polar ends on them that are always attracted to polar H2O molecules, so detergents can be made to be unaffected by hardness ions in the water. This is why you will never see soap scum in your KITCHEN sink. That's because you use a dish washing DETERGENT in your kitchen sink. You only find soap scum in your bath tub and bathroom sink, because that's where you use SOAP, not a detergent.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

PS:

Our word "soap" almost certainly comes from the name of Mount Sopa near Rome in Italy. In Roman times Mount Sopa was the place you went to ask a favour of a God. You would buy a small animal sacrifice, like a bird or ferret, kill it, tie it to a spit and burn it over an open fire so the smoke would rise up to the heavens carrying your request to whatever God you thought could help you out.

Roman women noticed that washing their clothes in the streams that ran down the slopes of Mount Sopa after a rain got them cleaner than washing clothes anywhere else or at any other time. It is believed that the animal fats from the sacrificial fires mixed with the alkaline ash in the fire pits to make a crude soap that would be carried by the rains down the slopes of Mount Sopa. There are historical records from Roman times attesting to the fact that women would flock to Mount Sopa after a rain to do their laundry. At the time, the Romans believed that the better cleaning action was due to one God or another looking down favourably on the hard working women of Rome.

Also, it is known that the Romans made soap, but the written historical record only says that they used it as a skin balm. No historical accounts exist to say that they actually used it for bathing, although it's probable that they did.


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

That is very informative, thank you, Nestor.[emoji3]


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## JourneymanBrian (Apr 1, 2015)

As to the Romans, in Latin class we were told that the washed themselves with oil and a scraper.


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