Many of us like to change our cleaning products from time to time, or even combine them, and after all, it doesn’t matter – does it?
You might be surprised to learn that some household cleaning products should in fact, never be mixed, and to help you keep your home and family safe when cleaning your home, here are a list of 9 of the most important cleaning products that shouldn’t be mixed:
- Bleach and vinegar
As disinfectants, none can be more powerful than distilled white vinegar and bleach, but if they’re mixed, they can produce chlorine gas. This can cause any number of health concerns, from a cough to breathing problems, and should be avoided at all costs.
- Bleach and ammonia
Both products are great for cleaning in different ways: bleach for laundry and disinfecting toilets, and ammonia for windows, but when combined, they produce a toxic gas called chloramine. As with mixing the two cleaning products mentioned previously, this can cause breathing problems and chest pain.
- Rubbing alcohol and bleach
Alcohol is commonly found in many household cleaning products, but it should never be combined with bleach. A mixture of the two creates chloroform, and while low levels can still make you pass out, high levels can do serious damage to your nervous system and many other organs.
NB: bleach should never be mixed with any other household cleaning product
- Hydrogen peroxide and vinegar
While safe and often very effective when used alone, should they be mixed together, they can create some dangerous chemical mixtures, some of which could result in corrosive acid that will damage the surfaces in your home.
- Drain cleaner and…drain cleaner?
Thanks to the powerful chemicals contained within most drain cleaning products, these should never be mixed under any circumstances – or even used one after another – as this could cause explosive chlorine gas, which is as serious as it sounds!
- Antibacterial disinfectants and detergent
If an all-purpose antibacterial surface cleaner containing ammonia is used with a foamy soap like detergent, its cleaning power will be negated.
- Oven cleaner and bleach
Bleach is powerfully effective when used alone, but if mixed with oven cleaner (among many other products), the degreasing chemicals and chlorine combined can produce a toxic gas that irritates your eyes, throat and lungs.
- Bleach and toilet bowl cleaner
The acids, alcohols and chemicals contained within most toilet bowl cleaning products, can create an extremely dangerous and toxic gas with the power to make you very ill, when combined with bleach.
- Different brands of cleaners
There are so many cleaning products out there, created by so many different brands, that you can never be 100% certain that one doesn’t contain ingredients that are harmful when combined with another cleaning product of exactly the same name, but by another brand.
If you’re worried about getting it wrong when using different cleaning products in your home, always check online or read the manufacturers guidelines before using them; alternatively, hire a cleaning service – they’ll never get it wrong!
