Things to clean

Things people own and clean. Each one is really several cleaning problems at once, because its parts do not all take the same treatment.

Listed alphabetically.

• Air fryer

  Soils like an oven at a tenth of the size — and the manufacturer is most specific about the heating element, which is the part people are most afraid to touch.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Baby bottle

  An object where cleaning is explicitly not enough, and the national health service says so: a dishwasher cleans feeding equipment and does not sterilise it.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Barbecue

  An outdoor cooker whose parts are made of different things, where the only surface food touches is the one people clean most aggressively.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Bath

  Two baths made of different materials want opposite treatment, and they look almost identical once installed.

  Acrylic · Parts cleaned differently

• Bicycle

  An object where cleaning it wrong is a mechanical risk rather than a cosmetic one — because the solvent that cleans the chain destroys the bearings.

  Aluminium, Painted and coated steel, Natural rubber… · Parts cleaned differently

• Bicycle helmet

  Safety equipment that people clean like sports kit. What harms it is established; what is safe is not, because the only authority available is not the manufacturer.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Can opener

  Named by the regulator, and the reason is the one part nobody washes: the cutting wheel.

• Car exterior

  Almost everything that marks car paint is an etch in a clear coat forty microns thick, and almost every scratch comes from grit under a cloth.

  Vehicle clear coat, Glass, Natural rubber… · Parts cleaned differently

• Car interior

  Four materials in a sealed box with a ventilation system running through it. Almost everything that goes wrong here goes wrong underneath, where nothing can reach it.

  Carries warnings · Upholstery fabric, Finished leather, Coated upholstery · Parts cleaned differently

• Cast iron pan

  The pan with the most confident folklore attached to it, and the manufacturer contradicts the most famous rule in it.

  Seasoned cast iron

• Chopping board

  The one surface where cleaning is genuinely the control measure — and three university authorities give three different bleach dilutions for it.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Coffee machine

  An appliance that heats hard water continuously, and whose maker's own descaling routine begins by taking out the filter that exists to prevent scale.

  Household plastics, Stainless steel, Natural rubber · Parts cleaned differently

• Comb

  Not a small hairbrush. The maker gives it a completely different procedure, because it has no tuft to hold water and no pad to hide it in.

• Dishcloth

  Named by the regulator as a thing that needs disinfecting, not as a thing that does the disinfecting. Damp is the problem, and drying is half the instruction.

  Cotton

• Dishwasher

  The appliance whose commonest complaint — cloudy glasses — the manufacturer identifies as permanent damage rather than dirt.

  Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Door handle

  Named by the food-safety regulator as a hand-contact point, which is a different cleaning category from a surface that merely gets dirty.

  Stainless steel

• Drinking glasses

  A cloudy glass is two different faults with the same appearance, and only one of them can be cleaned. Telling them apart takes about a minute.

• Driveway

  The largest hard surface most households own, and the one where the standard cleaning method removes the jointing along with the dirt.

  Concrete and stone paving, Sandstone, Slate…

• Extractor hood

  Two filters that look alike and have opposite answers: one is washed monthly, the other cannot be cleaned at all and is thrown away.

  Vitreous enamel, Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Freezer

  Cold does not clean. Everything spilled in a freezer is still there, held in place, and the smell only announces itself once it thaws.

  Household plastics, Painted and coated steel

• Garden ornament

  Soft, porous stone outdoors, which is the worst combination for cleaning: it scratches easily, it traps what lands on it, and it hosts what grows on it.

  Concrete and stone paving, Limestone, Sandstone…

• Grill

  The part of a cooker that carbonises fat by design. The manufacturer excludes oven cleaner from the pan and the grid, and adds a fire warning about foil.

  Vitreous enamel, Stainless steel

• Hair straightener

  A ceramic-coated plate that gets to 230°C and collects burnt styling product. The manufacturer's cleaning section is three lines, and the water instruction in it is not the water instruction elsewhere in the same manual.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Hairbrush

  A wooden object with fibres in it, and the wood is the part that fails. Nearly every ruined hairbrush was ruined in a sink.

  Carries warnings · Parts cleaned differently

• Hand tools

  Carbon steel with an oil film on it. Cleaning them the way you would clean a kitchen surface removes the only thing stopping them rusting.

  Stainless steel, Galvanised steel, Household plastics…

• Hob

  A hot surface that must be cleaned cold, where the enamel is acid-resistant rather than acid-proof — and the difference is a spill left standing.

  Ceramic glass, Vitreous enamel, Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Household drain

  The one thing in a house you clean without being able to see, reach or test it — which is why almost every drain hack is really a guess.

• Jewellery

  A rare household object where cleaning it is subtractive. Every polish takes metal away, and on anything plated there is a finite amount to take.

  Gold, Gold plate and vermeil, Sterling silver

• Kettle

  The appliance where limescale appears fastest, because heating hard water is precisely what deposits it.

  Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Kitchen sink

  Usually stainless steel, and the surface in a house most exposed to the two things that damage stainless steel: chlorides and abrasion.

  Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Kitchen sponge

  The cleaning tool that is itself the contamination — and the source telling you how to clean it stops short of saying it gets disinfected.

• Kitchen worktop

  The surface most likely to be cleaned with the wrong product, because five materials that look similar have five incompatible rule sets.

  Engineered quartz, Granite, Polished marble…

• Laptop computer

  An object where the cleaning question and the electrical question are one and the same, and where the manufacturer's answer is mostly a list of things not to do.

  Parts cleaned differently

• Leather shoes

  The leather trade prohibits saddle soap and mink oil by name, along with most of what is sold to care for shoes.

  Finished leather

• Light fitting

  The only routine dusting job in a house carried out at a live mains connection — which is why the instruction that matters is not about a cleaning product.

• Light switch

  A hand-contact point with a live electrical device behind it, which changes the method more than the material does.

  Household plastics

• Makeup brush

  A tool held together by glue and used on skin, which is why the dermatology answer is about where the water goes rather than what is in it.

• Mattress

  The manufacturer's answer is that you largely do not clean it. You protect it, vacuum it, wash the cover — and above all keep it dry.

  Carries warnings · Memory foam

• Microwave oven

  The appliance where a dirty door seal is a containment question rather than a cosmetic one, and where the two cleaners most people reach for are both excluded.

  Carries warnings · Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Mirror

  The object whose standard household treatment its own trade body rules out. Vinegar and ammonia are both named.

  Mirrored glass

• Mobile phone

  The most-handled object anyone owns, and the manufacturer's guidance stops at glass, ceramic and metal — which leaves the case and the charging port outside it.

  Carries warnings · Parts cleaned differently

• Oven

  Baked-on grease polymerised by heat, in an enclosure containing several materials with conflicting requirements.

  Carries warnings · Stainless steel, Aluminium · Parts cleaned differently

• Oven glove

  A textile that handles hot food and then goes back in a drawer. Named alongside cloths and sponges as something that needs washing.

• Paint brush

  The rare cleaning job where the hardest question is not how to get it clean but where the dirty water is allowed to go — and the answer is set locally.

• Painted wall

  How much cleaning a wall survives is decided by its sheen, not its colour — and matt emulsion is the least tolerant surface in the house.

  Painted walls

• Patio and driveway paving

  The most-asked outdoor cleaning question, and the manufacturer's own guidance spends more words on how NOT to pressure wash it than on how to clean it.

  Concrete and stone paving

• Patio furniture

  Not one thing. A frame, a cushion and a cover made of three different materials, weathering outdoors at different rates and wanting three different answers.

  Coated aluminium, Powder-coated aluminium · Parts cleaned differently

• Pillow

  Whether it can be washed is decided by the filling, not by the pillow. Cotton, down and synthetic generally can; foam is wiped, never wetted.

  Memory foam

• Plastic storage boxes

  The most common place a household meets plastic ageing: staining that will not come out, and a lid that has gone tacky for reasons nothing to do with dirt.

  Household plastics, Household plastics

• Refrigerator

  A cold cabinet of plastic liners, rubber gaskets and glass shelves, where the manufacturer's longest instruction is a prohibited list and the strangest is about temperature.

  Carries warnings · Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Rug

  A textile floor covering you can lift, which changes three answers — and which yellows the carpet underneath it by sitting there.

  Jute, Wool

• Shaving brush

  The one brush that is supposed to get soaked, and the one whose whole care instruction is about which way up it dries.

• Shower

  Four incompatible surfaces within arm's length of each other, permanently wet, and the two commonest deposits need opposite chemistry from the grout that joins them.

  Glass, Porcelain tile, Grout… · Parts cleaned differently

• Shower curtain

  Permanently damp, rarely dried and almost never washed — which is why it grows the thing people then try to bleach off it.

  Household plastics, Polyester

• Shower head

  Blocked by the same carbonate deposit as a kettle, and finished in the one coating that most descaling products are excluded from.

  Chrome plating, Household plastics, Silicone sealant

• Silver cutlery

  Tarnish is a chemical reaction with sulphur in the air, and every removal of it takes metal with it. On plate, that is a countdown.

  Sterling silver, Silver plate

• Sofa

  A large soft surface whose cleaning code was decided at the factory. Two independent manufacturers both begin by prohibiting the same vacuum attachment.

  Upholstery fabric, Polyester, Finished leather · Parts cleaned differently

• Spectacles

  Cleaned more often than anything else a person owns, almost always on a shirt tail, which is the one method the lens manufacturer names as damaging.

  Coated spectacle lens

• Stainless steel pan

  Stainless is not stain-proof, and both of its common blemishes — rainbow tinting and white pitting — are chemistry rather than dirt.

  Stainless steel

• Steam iron

  The appliance whose maker forbids by name the remedy the internet recommends for it. Descaling is mechanical and thermal, and nothing goes in the tank but water.

  Stainless steel, Household plastics · Parts cleaned differently

• Suede shoes

  The lower split of the hide, napped on both sides and porous. The trade calls it the most difficult of the leathers to clean, and starts with a powder rather than a liquid.

  Suede, Nubuck

• Toaster

  A heating element in a slot full of crumbs. The manual's cleaning section sits under an electric-shock heading and a fire heading, which is the correct framing.

  Carries warnings · Parts cleaned differently

• Toilet

  Glazed china that tolerates more than people think, surrounded by fittings that tolerate much less. The mistake is treating it as one surface.

  Vitreous china · Parts cleaned differently

• Towels

  Absorbency is the whole point and it is what routine laundry habits destroy — softener coats the loops, and heat shrinks them.

  Cotton

• Trainers

  Not a surface but a glued assembly, which is why the manufacturer's answer to the washing machine is no at every temperature.

  Carries warnings · Parts cleaned differently

• Tumble dryer

  The one appliance whose routine cleaning task is printed under a fire-hazard heading rather than under care and cleaning.

  Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Washing machine

  The appliance that cleans everything else, and the one whose own cleaning problem has actually been measured. The contamination is not spread evenly, which changes what to do about it.

  Stainless steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Waterproof jacket

  A garment whose performance is a finish rather than a fabric, which means the wrong wash does not dirty it — it stops it working.

  Waterproof outerwear, Polyester

• Wheelie bin

  People treat it as a cleaning problem; the collection authority answers it as a waste-handling one. The cleaning instruction is real and it is one line of a much longer answer.

• Window

  Three surfaces in one opening — glass, frame and hardware — and the manufacturer gives each of them a different answer, including one that must not meet water at all.

  uPVC, Glass · Parts cleaned differently

• Window blind

  One product name over at least three materials that want opposite treatment. The wooden ones must stay dry; some metal ones can be put in a bath of water — as long as the headrail is kept out of it.

  Finished wood flooring, Aluminium · Parts cleaned differently

• Window frame

  Three finishes that look similar from a ladder and behave nothing alike. Two of them are damaged permanently by a cream cleaner.

  uPVC, Anodised aluminium, Powder-coated aluminium…

• Wood-burning stove

  A solid-fuel appliance whose parts need genuinely different treatment: painted steel body, ceramic glass door, and a firebox that should mostly be left alone.

  Painted and coated steel · Parts cleaned differently

• Wooden furniture

  The finish decides everything, and the most-used product on it leaves a residue that survives stripping the finish down to bare wood.

  Finished wood flooring, Waxed wood, Oiled wood…

• Workwear

  Clothing that meets industrial soils. The temptation is to use the same solvent that cleaned the part — and a dryer makes that a fire warning.

  Cotton, Polyester

Almost everything useful about cleaning an oven follows from the materials it is made of and the problems it attracts, rather than from the fact that it is an oven. What is specific to the object is its parts — the ones that need a different treatment from the thing they belong to.