Hello to all.
A pesky tenant in the building I am working in poured a bunch of paint and mineral spirits down his kitchen sink, causing a clog, and subsequent back up of paint, water, and mineral spirits in the kitchen sink and dishwasher below him.
Luckily our drain guy came over right away and opened everything up. The sink was easy to clean up, but the dishwasher reeks of paint thinner even after two cleaning cycles. Does anyone here know a good way of fixing this problem?
We are going to bill the schmuck for his efforts, if indeed the D/W is ruined.
rg
Replies
Replace the dish washer. I don't think that you are going to have any luck getting the smell completely out of the plastic. The smell migrate to everything that gets washed, the drying cycle will only make things worse. I would give the tenant a new dishwasher and make it a good one. Charge the guilty party for time, material and anything else that you can think of.
On second thought install the old unit in the idiots apartment.
Ricky,
This is just a guess, but if it were me, I'd try it.
Paint thinner, aka mineral spirits, is really just a slow evaporating light oil, like WD40. It doesn't mix with water on its own but.....add an emulsifying agent like Lestoil and it should.
So what I would do is run a cycle with Lestoil, followed by conventional dishwasher soap and see what happens.
Jon
Is the tenant still a tenant?
If so, ask him wha the wants to do since he's going to pay for it anyway. If not repaired/replaced to your satisfaction when he moves out, charge his deposit for that nice one mentioned, etc.
Other than that, I'd use a few more cycles than two.
wash a few used cat litter boxes in there..either (1) it'll remove the smell...or (2)..you will become happy with the smell of paint thinner..
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Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Yeah, since you have a piece of equipment designed to remove oily smelly stuff and flush it down the drain (i.e. the D/W), I'd run the D/W a few times before deciding whether to toss it.
It is also an emotional, rather than totally logical issue. Once something has been contaminated (a D/W or the land and water I clean up) some people never look at it the same way. Had a mirowave at work that had a little burrito fire. The offender emptied a fire extinguisher in it. Didn't matter how clean it was, some people didn't want to use it. So the offender was charged for a new one and got to keep the old one.
Burrito fire? Cool!
We had someone warm up some pickled herring or some such type of fish in ours. Should have made him buy a new one. That thing (microwave) stunk for months afterwards.
Well you fooled me. I thought from the title that SWMBO had an offensive odor...
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
The craftsman formerly known as elCid
Thanks to all for the advice. I don't think the smell will go away, but we will run a couple of cycles today and find out.
The funny thing about all of this is that the guy pouring the paint and c r a p down the sink owns a construction business (commercial walls and ceilings) and was painting the condo for his daughter.
Some of you may remember that I am converting two buildings from apartments to condos. As they sell and fill up, it's become very interesting the chemistry between the buyers and my crew.
One purchaser thinks we should be at their beck and call for everything down to the light bulbs. One guy has already started to demo a bunch of nice wainscoting we did, because he thinks it doesn't look modern enough, and wants to use OUR construction dumpster for free. Then this guy comes along who cause this pain in our you know what and should know better.
rg
People are funny.
people are strange.Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
I'm so glad I'm not a landlord anymore.
The problem is that the mineral spirits float on water. Since the DW always has some amount of liquid left in the base, the mineral spirits never get fully pumped out.
I would try Simple Green. Seem to work well at dissolving oils, and does not foam much.
Okay, here's what we did.
After examining the new D/W very closely, we discovered that the acrid mineral spirits aroma that was so prominent yesterday has virtually disappeared. The real problem we found was that the binder and mineral spirits seems to have combined and chemically welded itself to many different parts of the D/W interior.
We are replacing the D/W at the upstairs tenants expense.
Thank you all for your help and suggestions.
rg
Thank god it's all cleared up .... you guys are really screwing me up though ... you gotta decide if DW is "Dear Wife" or "Dish Washer" before you start talking about the putrid smells coming from your DW .....
That's a good one. Sorry for the confusion.
rg
no prob - just messin' with ya