What's caustic soda for?

scrimpingbadger

Make soap with mine - but I always wear gloves and won't use it of my little l'un is around.

desmonds

wilroda wrote: »

My OH has done a wonderful job of cleaning the patio and our wooden outside chairs with it with minimal effort and he tells me that I can use it to clean the oven too although good rubber gloves are needed when you use it....

Having spent a whole pound on the bottle it has proved to be great value!

Hi,

I used some decking cleaner last year and it cleaned my decking amazingly.

I believe it was sodium hydroxide(caustic soda) and seeing that it cleaned your patio and wooden chairs then it must have been the same stuff.

The thing is i used it all up and can't get hold of the same stuff but wondered if anyone else has tried using it to clean decking 'cos i've tried Nitrol Nitromers and patio cleaners like hydrocloric acid but they are all a waste of money and time.

The only stuff that worked was this liquid that when applied turned the wood very soapy and slippery and when cleaned off using a jet washer it produced white water trails like soapy water.

Did the trick though and cleaned the decking with such ease.

Anyone tried using caustic soda to clean decking please comment.

Thanks

Paul

Gigervamp

I use it to make soap and occasionally clear blocked drains. Always wear gloves, mask and goggles and always add the lye to the water, not the other way around.

scagetman

please be very carefull with this chemical. 1 drop splashed in your eyes causes permanet blindess

InfamyInfamy

scrimpingbadger wrote: »

Make soap with mine - but I always wear gloves and won't use it of my little l'un is around.

I use it in soap making too....but if you treat it like a scientific experiment you add the caution you need!

Chrisingranada

Also, will it be any good at cleaning oil stains from my tarmac driveway?[/QUOTE]

Best way to remove oil stains on path/drive is cover them with standard cat litter then leave for 24 hours. Might take two goes on stubborn stains. Cheap option too.

mumsiemum

Can it be used to unblock plastic pipes?

Poorly_Lady

I don't know quite how I got on this site but I have, so I joined. I was looking up caustic soda and this came up.

I watched a programme last night about Victorian food, and they were talking about how in every Victorian House there was a danger of death just in the products on people's shelves. One really dangerous product was caustic soda, which was apparently often mixed up with things on the shelves like Bicarbonate of Soda. To cut a long story short, scars are caused by accidentally swallowing this product, damaging a person's Oesophagus.

I have Barret's Oesophagus, and I have these types of scars on my Oesphagus (gullet), but they are not malignant ones. The hospital took two cold biopsies from the scars during an endoscopy back at the end of January 2014.

There is also no dysplasia, which is a cancerous nodule I think on the gullet wall. I also have a hiatus hernia, and if I had any malignancy or dysplasia I would be likely to die within five years.

The stat's: there are 375,00 people with this disease and 37,500 are likely to get cancer from it, with 3,750 likely to die within 5 years if so. This is from the Barrett's Foundation/Charity site.

More hard facts from the Barrett's Foundation/Charity: We all apparently have a hernia of some kind, 40% of us, but some of us get unlucky and like me, the upper stomach breaks through the diaphragm, which is weakened by the stomach stretching too much, and causes a hernia. The Barrett's scars are caused by severe acid reflux over many years, which I have had for many years.

My consultant told me that the disease is not hereditary, nor attributed to women, drinkers, smokers or people who are overweight (none of which I am). That said my eldest sister died at my age several years ago now. We were split up as children, and we only heard about her early demise through a chance encounter. My true father also had a hiatus hernia, who I have only met a few times in my life, on one of which of those occasions he told me he had a hiatus hernia and had to watch what he ate all the time, which was many moons ago and when I was too young to know what he was referring to. My two children also suffered bad colic as babies, and so does my grand-daughter who is two soon, and who had to have baby Gaviscon.

I have Omeprezole (anti-acid capsules), Colpermin (peppermint oil capsules) and Gaviscon, and my headboard end of the bed has to be raised at night to drain my stomach, which I have been doing for about three months and which has improved things a bit. I have also been advised not to eat large meals, which may, a, irritate the inflamed gullet, and b, stretch the stomach, and to avoid certain foods. I also was treated to a picture of this affected area after the endoscopy which frightened me to death nearly.

My question is, what if caustic soda is being used in some of the foods we eat (perhaps to make up weights by food producers), and that is why people's digestions are being affected, like in the Victorian era, especially causing Barrett's Oesophagus scars to certain people? Question 2, what if no one knows about this, and now the affects of it are showing up? It's a relatively misunderstood disease with no known cure and with little history to go on.

What do members of this forum think about this? I know it must sound a bit of a conspiracy theory, but this is my and others lives at stake here.

Also, just to make matters worse, it took the doctors almost a whole year to find out what I had, despite I told them of the history of hernia in our family and the digestive problems, which they ignored. They treated me for hay fever with antibiotics, asthma, giving me an inhaler, and I have had loads of different ECG tests, a chest X-ray, a lung spiralling, and other things for heart pains, which is actually the hernia rolling about after meals causing the pains in my chest.

Are there foods that are caustic enough, like this product, that would cause this?

The doctors say that the worse offenders are, cheese, coffee, tea, alcohol, smoking. Well guess what, I don't eat cheese, I don't drink coffee, I like my tea weak, always have, and I don't smoke or drink. I am also a good weight as I walk a lot. I also drink a lot of water and eat sensibly.

Who are they kidding? Who is the doctor here exactly?

regards, poorly lady.

Cinders2001

Can I use this stuff to clean a REALLY grimy vinyl floor?
It's got lots of pit marks and I want to get it thoroughly clean before I seal it.

Grundy51

cathy wrote: »

Its very dangerous, sorry about your mum thats terrible.

I restore old furniture now and again so use it as a stripper, its a lot cheaper than nitromors but I make sure im gloved gowned and masked and goggled.

we also use it if the drains block which they seem to with frequency around here

other than that it stays in the shed.

Hear what you say Cathy; can it be used to lighten the shade of wood i.e. make a dark wood pale(r)? Or is there something else I could try?