Tuesday 11 December 2007

Boiling the house

When you boil something, you really know that it's clean. The boiling point of water is 100 degrees centigrade, at normal atmospheric pressure. Once you've boiled something for ten minutes—a syringe, or a dummy—you know the little microbes that were sitting on it have been well and truly fried. Knowing this, I clean kitchen wettexes by sticking them in the microwave for 1 minute and 11 seconds on high.

it's easier to push 1-1-1-start than 1-0-0-start. Rice gets cooked for 12 minutes 22 seconds for a similar reason.

It occurs to me that one way of cleaning a house would be to warm every surface in it to 100 degrees for 10 minutes. Of course, this would be impractical, but even restricting the heating to kitchen and bathroom surfaces would represent a useful and immediate increase in the level of household hygiene. I imagine the nests of cockroaches hiding behind the oven, microwave, refrigerator and under the sink would be perturbed by the experience as well. And it would be a good way of heating the house in winter.

Imagine being able to phone up your kitchen and bathroom when you were fifteen minutes from home and instructing them to fry all microbes for 10 minutes, and to have a nice cup of tea waiting as well.

This seems to me so obvious that it is a wonder that no-one has thought of the idea before now.

9 comments:

Mattt said...

That would be nice, though I do find cleaning the kitchen a little therapeutic (weird I know).

Irradiation is the go. I little emitter on the ceiling = all bugs dead. Though I'm not sure how it would get rid of the hair and soap scum :) ?

I think we can be sure that the need for steel wool, rubber gloves and elbow grease will continue.

Or maybe robots...

Gordon Cheng said...

I did think about that, and it is a good option, but wouldn't work for the roaches.

Anonymous said...

Will Rogers’ response to a reporter’s question on how he would deal with the Nazi U-boats: "Boil the ocean." "But how would you do that?" the reporter continued. Without a beat Rogers replied, "I’m just the idea man here. Get someone else to work out the details."
Keep the ideas coming, Gordon

Gordon Cheng said...

There are some practical difficulties, I acknowledge that. If all the surfaces were stainless steel, that would help.

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Have you considered using a Molotov Cocktail?

Lucy C said...

Or you could move to the Mountains.
There are no 'roaches in the Mountains!

Baddelim said...

you crack me up.

i love this idea. it's so efficient.

i bet the cockroaches would just be super-clean though and wouldn't actually get the hint and die. they never do.

JMB

Nixter said...

I tend to bleach every surface I can..

I am a bleach freak!

I wonder what the little microbes think of that!?!?

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

I just did the kitchen wipe in the microwave thing. Even did it for 111 seconds.

Gordo starts a meme!