It's a question, not an answer, lol. I find when working wood my clothes get incredibly dirty. I don't know how they get so dirty! I assume this is ground in sawdust with maybe a little dirt. The fuel/oil doesn't help. Any tips for getting the clothes clean? My gf cannot get them clean at her house because she cannot use bleach due to having a septic tank system. Is that what they call them these days, still called septic tanks? My house is on city sewerage system, I can use anything. Wondering if I should soak them in something because they sure are not coming out clean. We also do not use a harsh detergent due to skin allergies, we use something more 'gentle' but I may have to just get some Tide or something, lol.
How many times do you wear your stuff, before laundering? Launder more often? We have a septic system. We use bleach, but sparingly. Look for some of that oxi cleaner. It works pretty well.
We too have a septic, nothing special is done, so not a concern. I have dedicated clothing for Wood. It's mostly stuff that's on its way out, so I frequently just throw it away... or we wash them separately.
Maybe hers is not called a septic system. She has aerators that come on a few times during the day and it sprays. It's some kind of treatment system, I guess it's not septic. I'm at a loss for the word now unless it's just "a treatment system." Whatever it is, she was told don't use bleach. I get my clothes dirty like this with just one use.
generally powdered detergents still work better for whites as they can still have bleaching agents (whiteners) , but phosphates was one cleaner that has been removed from laundry soap because it ends up in the environment. You can try Tide super ultra stain remover if you can find it locally or try going to a hardware store that sells TSP which has the phosphates in it that used to be in laundry detergent and add a little bit of that. Stains can set though, especially in a dryer if you still use one and once set you pretty much have to destroy the fibers to get the stain out.
Question: what kind of clothing do you wear? I wear carhartt jeans and cotton or fleece shirts and wear them more than one day. I don't do laundry but wife does. She uses BIZ powder along with Tide. Throw them in the washer and wash in cold water. If an especially dirty spot, a bar of lava can come in handy for pre-treating.
When cutting and splitting a lot of Doug Fir, my pants will get so full of pitch that they will almost stand up by themselves. I bought a gallon jug of that Orange hand cleaner that I use for after working in the shop. It removes grease, oil and pitch effectively. If you rub some of that on the worst pitchy areas as a pretreatment, it helps tremendously! I'm sure it would work on stains also.
Laundry mat? Use a new front loader, prewash, soil level heavy, extra hot water, oxiclean. Use gf's or your dryer at home.
Chaz has old clothes he wears around here when working. So we don't worry if they don't come out "clean". We also have septic.
Same here, I have older dedicated clothes for working outside so if they don't come clean it's not a big deal. I will wear small semi stained stuff while working. If it's really bad then I'll eventually replace it with something on its way out. Same with painting!
Good place to put this life learned lesson. If you buy one of those fancy new top loaders with no auger in the middle you’ll never get your clothes clean again. As for Yawner I add old fashioned Borax plus the normal detergent. Don’t know what’s in it but the old stuff works.
Guilty as charged. Very fortunate Lowe's has a good return policy. I have several light weight tshirts I wear year round, it pulled tiny rips and holes in most of them
I have dedicated jeans and shirts I wear in the woods. I have 'work' clothes and 'yard' clothes. Work clothes are button-down shirts and clean jeans that I wear to work, and yard clothes are usually stained, ripped, holey or have other issues. Yard clothes get extra Oxiclean or a bit of Borax. No bleach, that's just good for whitening and disinfecting but doesn't actually clean anything. Also, having spent 25+ years designing septic systems I can tell you that a bit of bleach once in a while won't hurt a thing. Also, up here in the northeast, my yard clothes are treated with permethrin (Sawyer's) because of the tick problem. I don't want Lyme disease again.
HEY, I think you are on to something. She got a new washing machine and it's that type. I asked her when I saw it, "How does that thing clean clothes?" I forgot about that!
I have dedicated work clothes. I wash them to get the sweat and the stink off. The stains are staying. Also, wear your chaps. My pants or bibs have stayed in better shape since my chaps take the abuse. I wear them for weed whacking too
I'm retired and my wife still works so I do all the laundry in my house, and I'm good at it! Use a pretreater like Spray & Wash on the worst stains, be sure to rub it in the stain well, then add oxy-clean to the washer before loading the clothes. Add the max amount of laundry detergent and use the machine's longest cycle. Dang! I needs ta gets da saw out! Dis housework stuff is embarisikin!
Just don’t start doing mods to the washer and hoarding detergent and you will be fine. Cooler weather will be here soon and you can go get some saw time.
Like a few mentioned above, I too have dedicated firewood'n shirts. Pants don't seem to take the brunt of the labor but the shirts get all stained up. Always have on chaps for saw work and splitting I'm typically not making much contact below the waist.
