Category: Garage Organization

A habit of keeping car rims clean reveals two admirable traits of car owners.

First, they understand that it prevents damage from corrosion and promotes safe driving.

Second, it shows respect for the vehicle by enhancing its beauty. Car washes make a car look good, but they cannot do the high-quality job on rims a car deserves.

Understanding the purpose of car rims and the different materials that manufacturers use can help you decide the best way to keep them clean.

About Your Car Rims

Steel, aluminum, and chrome have pros and cons that give you cost, durability, and beauty options.

While you focus on cleaning the rims, you can learn how to clean your tires to create a well-kept appearance that complements you as an owner.

Steel

An advantage of steel rims lets you spend less money to buy them, but they can cost more to drive. Heavier than aluminum, they can require more fuel, but they provide better traction in snow.

In addition, while salt in the atmosphere can create rust, steel can benefit from reconditioning.

Rust creates a constant need to provide maintenance and upkeep for steel. Dish soap and water can remove road grime, but rust requires gentle pressure with a chemical rust remover.

Alcohol can remove other stains before you apply a protective coating to prevent rust.

Aluminum

Regular and frequent care of aluminum wheels can keep the lightweight car rims in good shape, and it starts with rinsing them with a garden hose.

Household products such as baking soda in your laundry room can mix with dish soap to remove greasy stains.

Pitting can result when you delay removing road grime and dirt, brake dust, and oily substances.

If you are removing corrosion, it is a much more complicated process that requires commercial cleaners and a series of precise steps.

Chrome

A hose down with a garden hose can provide a start to the process of removing dirt and road grime. However, the beauty and complexity of chrome car rims require special treatment with home products or chrome cleaners.

After hosing the rims with pressure from a hose nozzle, focus on cleaning one at a time.

Frequent cleaning to remove the corrosion from brake dust, heat, and friction help protect your shiny chrome rims.

Cleaning the Rims

The process of cleaning car rims starts with understanding that it takes time to do it right.

Shortcuts do not work, but patience and persistence can produce the results you want.

While steel, aluminum, and chrome may require different cleaning products to handle problem areas, dish soap offers a safe way to start the process.

1. Cool Surfaces
While it may seem a good idea to clean the rims while hot, you get better results if you wait until your car cools down after travel.

2. Water Pressure
An ordinary garden hose with a nozzle can apply enough water pressure to remove loose dirt and debris.

3. Cleaning Solution
Mix a teaspoon of Dawn or other concentrated dish liquid into a gallon bucket of water to produce a safe cleaning solution.

4. Scrubbing Gently
A soft cloth or sponge can loosen grease and grime when you make gentle, circular motions.

But, again, starting from the outer edge and working toward the middle produces the best effect.

5. Clearing the Soap and Grease
Rinse the loose residue of grime and grease with water from a garden hose without a nozzle.

Start at the top and rinse until no soap bubbles appear.

6. Drying
Use a soft, clean towel to wipe away any water droplets on the rims.

7. Finish
Stand back and admire your work before you take your car for a spin.

Other Cleaners You Can Use on Rims

Some DIY cleaners that you find in your kitchen or bath may work well for your rims and help resolve specific issues.

However, while some contain highly abrasive ingredients that can remove almost any stain, they pose potential health hazards.

Lemon Juice and Baking Soda

Streak-free windows present an appearance of cleanliness, and the lemon juice that creates them works well on your car rims when you combine it with water and baking soda.

You can mix two tablespoons of lemon juice and half a cup of soda with a cup of tepid water in a spray bottle to prepare a solution.

Then, start spraying the DIY cleaner in the center of the wheel and on a clean, super-absorbent cloth to remove stains on the rim and tires.

Long-standing favorites of car enthusiasts are chamois and microfiber cloths.

Carbonated Soft Drinks

Your chrome wheels can shine again when you let the phosphoric acid and carbonation in Coke dissolve grease and tarnish on your lug nuts and exterior surfaces.

After you spray the drink on your tires and rims, give it a few minutes to work. First, use an old toothbrush or a tire brush to access tight areas.

Next, removing the sticky, sweet residue requires a mixture of 1 cup each of dish soap and vinegar in a bucket of water before you can rinse with a garden hose.

Oven Cleaner

When the accumulation of dirt, road grime, stains, brake dust, rust, and oils on your chrome wheels becomes too hard to clean with simple cleansers, oven cleaners can take care of it.

However, some precautions can prevent injury to your skin and eyes. Give the powerful oven cleaner 10 minutes to work, and you can go ahead and spray all the rims at one time.

A toilet brush can scrub the areas that need it that the cleaner alone cannot treat. Stubborn stains and rust may take longer to remove and maybe another coating with the cleaner.

In addition to wearing glasses and gloves, keep a cup of vinegar within easy reach to neutralize any chemical that gets on your skin.

Rinse thoroughly with water from your hose.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner

When you consider the power of a chemical that can clean a toilet that contains water, you can realize the risk involved in cleaning car rims with the hydrochloric acid in some toilet bowl cleaners.

Nonetheless, it can clean almost any kind of stain from alloy car rims and tires.

Essential safety equipment includes glasses and rubber gloves.

1. Halfway fill a spray bottle with water and add 6 tablespoons of soda to prepare a neutralizer.
2. Squirt a little of the cleaner into a large and easily accessible glass bowl.
3. Carefully apply the cleaner to spots on your rim that need cleaning.
4. Leave the chemical on each area for no more than 15 seconds.
5. In addition, rinse each application with your neutralizer spray.
6. When you finish cleaning and neutralizing, rinse the wheel with hose water.

What Not to Do

Some mistakes in cleaning car rims can prove irreversible, while others make the job harder.

• Abrasive steel wool can destroy a finish and mar a protective covering.
• Letting the oven cleaner work on all wheels while you clean one of them provides an exception to the rule of handling one at a time.
• Spots that remain on your rims can lessen the beauty of a job you work hard to achieve. Instead, use chamois or a microfiber cloth to absorb every drop of water.

Cleaning the Tires

Sequence matters when tires need cleaning, and the proper order can prevent extra work.

• Before you start, mix a cup of baby oil with half a cup of water and a few drops of dish soap.
• Then, spray it on the tire and a soft cloth for applying it. The sweet aroma can make you feel as though the tires enjoy the pampering.
• Wash the tires before the car’s body. The grime and grease that you remove may splash on the vehicle, making you rewash it.
• Clean the tires before you work on the rims and wheel face to prevent a stream of filth from covering the work you just finished.
• Rubbing the surface with water only can damage it and not clean it at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

As a beginner in cleaning your car rims and tires, everything may seem new. However, some questions others have asked may give you the knowledge you need to do a great job.

How do you clean rims without scrubbing?
Choose a gentle cleaner that can remove the grime and dirt.

For stubborn stains, use a more powerful cleaner.

How do you clean rims that have oxidation?
Lemon juice or white vinegar in equal parts with water can remove oxidation from aluminum rims.

Apply the solution as soon as you see a powdery coating on your rims.

What household cleaners work well with cleaning rims?
Dish soap provides the mildest cleaner, but oven cleaner and toilet bowl cleaner can remove stubborn stains.

Do I need to apply wax to the rims after cleaning?
Yes, a quality wheel protectant can seal the surface and give your wheels a great look.

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The care that you give your car with cleaning can reward your efforts and make you proud.

In addition, tires and wheels can attract attention and draw admiration from anyone who sees your well-cared-for vehicle.

The holiday season has passed, and you’re ready to start the new year! And although putting up the tree and all the trimmings is great fun, none of us really like the cleanup and storage.

But if you want to preserve your ornaments and other Christmas decorations for another holiday season, we’ve got some tips on how to safely store everything until next year. It may require a little extra effort, but you will be glad you did so in the end.

Ornament Storage

These are generally your most prized Christmas possessions. You probably have a collection of beautifully decorated globes as well as hand-made gifts from your kids while in elementary school.

To protect them you’ll need to find a container that will keep them secure without damaging the glitter, appliques or painted fingerprints.

Here are a few options to protect these ornaments for next year.

Keep Original Packaging for Christmas Decorations

I try very hard to save the boxes that my store-bought ornaments come in, particularly if they contain a separator for the balls.

I know that they will fit and it’s generally easy to stack them in a larger container.

Egg Cartons

Some ideas for smaller ornaments such as bells or angels are empty egg cartons or small storage bins. These are also easy to stack and store in another container. Be sure to include tissue paper, felt or something similar to give some extra protection.

Commercial Storage Boxes

There are multiple options to purchase a commercially-made box designed specifically for ornament storage.

I would certainly consider this if you have delicate vintage ornaments or perhaps some unique ornaments from vacations or trips overseas. Some of them are even multi-layered and can hold 60+ ornaments.

Holiday Wreaths

You may be thinking that wreaths are so bulky that there is no easy way to store them. Actually, I don’t find it that difficult.

My favorite method is pretty easy. I wrap them in old towels that have seen better days and then stack them in a large plastic storage tote along with the door hangers.

If you have hat boxes laying around, they are also good. Some people have taken elaborate steps to create a special hanging wreath storage, but I’ve never felt the need.

There are commercial wreath storage bags if you want to shell out a few dollars.

Tree Storage Ideas

Obviously, if you’re a traditionalist and love decorating a live tree each year, this is one item you can skip. I always swore that I would never get an artificial tree but my parents gave me one a few years ago, and I was hooked!

I did have to find an alternate storage method though because the cardboard box didn’t make it after the first year. It’s difficult to find a plastic tote large enough to hold a 7-8 foot tree.

You will most likely need to purchase a specific tree storage bag (Amazon has quite a few to choose from) to maintain its shape and avoid compressing it. This is especially important if your tree has built-in fiber-optic lights.

Lights

Lights are especially tricky to store given how easy they are to get tangled. I admit that I’ve gotten so frustrated with them that I’ve just thrown them in a box in a giant ball. But boy how I paid for that the next year.

There are several ways to store lights and keep them tangle free.

Old Wrapping Paper Roll

This is my preferred method now and really quite simple. You need only an empty wrapping paper tube or two.

I take the tube and cut a slit in either end.

After this, you simply insert one end of the lights in the top slit and then begin to wrap the lights around the tube.

You can use the bottom slit to secure the cord end of the lights. If it is an unusually long string of lights, you can add a second tube fairly easily.

I have done a double wrap around a single tube, and you have to take care not to have the lights themselves intertwine. It can be done, but it takes a little more effort to wrap them such that the bulbs alternate on each row.

Cardboard Spools

A similar process is to use a large piece of cardboard to wrap the lights. The cardboard inserts that come in the boxes of Christmas gifts are well suited to this.

You’ll need to make a slit at the just like with the tube and then begin wrapping the lights vertically around the cardboard.

The good thing about this method is that you can easily find cardboard in different sizes so you can have one for smaller strings as well longer strings of lights.

Clothes Hangers

Almost everyone has some extra hangers lying around so put them to use this post-holiday season. And if you have smaller sets of lights, this will be a pretty easy solution.

You’ll need to make sure the hangers you use have the notches on top for straps. Just attach one end of the lights around the strap notch and then begin wrapping vertically around the hanger. If you have a rack or bar in your attic just hang the hangers there until the next holiday season.

You can secure them with clear plastic wrap as well for easier long-term storage.

Holiday Gift Wrapping Supplies

This is probably one of the easiest items to store because of the number of off-the-shelf solutions readily available.

I personally use a large red zippered tote that I bought during one of my daughter’s school fundraisers a few years ago.

It can easily hold about eight rolls of wrapping paper and has interior pockets to keep scissors, tape, ribbons, bows, etc. I love that all my supplies are in one bag and I can carry it easily wherever I need it.

Another option that I have seen is re-purposing an old garment bag. This is a pretty simple storage solution for your gift wrap and other supplies.

Yard Decorations

Outdoor decorations are going to be the most difficult to store by far. They are bulky, vary in size and are generally more expensive than any of your other holiday decorations.

You want to make sure you protect your investment.

Original packaging

One of the easiest options would be to reuse the boxes that your decorations came in as those boxes would be of a regular size and easier to store.

Smaller boxes could be consolidated into a larger tote and stored in an attic or basement.

Plastic totes

Except for some of your largest decorations such as animated reindeer, plastic totes would do well for most decorations.

Nutcrackers, blow-up Santas and nativities should be able to be housed in large 18-30 gallon totes or large cardboard storage boxes. I would put some bunched newspaper, moving pads, or other material in between the items to protect them from inadvertent damage.

Christmas Cards

Although most people choose to throw away any cards they’ve received after the Christmas holiday, you may have sentimental reasons to keep them.

Perhaps it’s a hand-made card from your child they’ve created for you in school. I have one card that I have kept for over 10 years because it has my daughter’s little handprint from when she was in kindergarten.

Storage Boxes

Several keepsake-type boxes or holiday-themed tins are attractive and are perfect for housing your Christmas cards.

You can then store the boxes in a closet and pull them out when you’re ready to travel down memory lane.

Bound Book

If you look on Pinterest, several crafters have bound their cards into book form using hoops and spiral bounding. If you’re looking for something more artistic that you could leave out on the coffee table, this might be an option for you.

I hope that these ideas are useful to your organizing efforts as the holiday season comes to a close. Ensure your Christmas decorations are safe and sound until next year’s holiday season.

When you’re a parent in a hockey family, you have to take on a number of roles. You’re a coach, a fan and an equipment manager all at the same time.

That last role may be one of the most stressful because the game requires a lot of gear. The majority of homes aren’t built with professional-grade locker rooms, so finding a place for all the skates, sticks and everything else can be a real challenge.

Not only does proper storage mean those items are kept out of the way, but it also helps keep them in great shape.

The Typical Hockey Gear List

This is what a typical hockey family has in a closet somewhere in their home. You may even have way more than this!

• Hockey Sticks (a few different ones)
• Skates
• Helmet
• Elbow and shin pads
• Gloves
• Hockey bags
• Neckguards and shoulderpads

Given how expensive hockey equipment usually is, it’s important to make sure that it wears out on the ice, not on your closet floor.

Fortunately, there is one spot in your home that can become the right place for your family’s hockey gear.

With a little work, your garage could be the substitute for a locker room you need.

Storing Hockey Gear in the Garage

If you create an effective system and some space, you can ensure that everything your players use will remain in good condition.

For some helpful pointers about how to create the perfect storage system for your equipment in your garage, take a look at the accompanying infographic.

Click arrows in the bottom right corner to expand full screen

Many people install freezers or refrigerators in their garage without giving it a second thought. If it is an older model that is less sensitive to temperature changes, they may not have too many problems. The newer and more efficient models tend to be more sensitive to external temperatures.

Here are some things to think about if you want your garage fridge or freezer to last many years.

What’s Wrong With a Garage Install?

The problem with installing a regular kitchen refrigerator or freezer in your garage comes about when an uninsulated garage reaches extreme temperatures. In the summer, this can cause the compressor to deteriorate and fail from the excessive run-times in scorching weather.

In the winter time, the thermostat may never turn on to cool the freezer. This may freeze the contents of items in the refrigerator section. This is because most models do not have a separate freezer thermostat.

When the refrigerator section drops below a certain point, it will simply suck the air out of the freezer unit. Some refrigerator/freezer combinations come with dual thermostats.

Check the Installation Instructions

The best method of determining if the refrigerator you are considering will work in your garage is by reading the installation instructions. In no uncertain terms, the instructions will give you the means and extremes of external operating conditions that it is approved to run in.

Although it may be possible to install a garage refrigerator kit to make any refrigerator respond properly to outside temperatures, this does not address the high-energy consumption problem in the summer. These kits aren’t expensive but require some wiring skills to manipulate the control box of your refrigerator.

It is probably a job best left for a professional if you don’t have experience with other household wirings, proper tools, or working knowledge.

Running your refrigerator outside of the suggested external temperature operating range published in the instruction manual will void the warranty.

Outdoor Refrigerators are Not Always Garage-Ready

Some refrigerators are sold as outdoor refrigerators or garage-ready. Nevertheless, because the devil is in the details, you need to find out what exactly that means. Refrigerators that are made to withstand outdoor weather may not be suited for the particular climate that you live in or may be very expensive ($1,000-$5,000).

The advantages of the higher quality outdoor refrigerators may be more than enough for a garage. These units have beefed up compressors and components to handle the load of running longer and keeping food frozen when it is blazing hot outside.

In addition, they have thicker insulation that creates a barrier to the external temperature fluctuations.

The weatherproofing and anti-corrosion features are a plus if water seeps into your garage from time to time. The UV protection is probably not a big issue if you plan on stashing your refrigerator in a garage behind walls and not panes of glass.

Alternatives for Installing a Garage Refrigerator

Rather than beefing up the installation of your garage refrigerator by purchasing an outdoor model, you can create your own small climate-controlled room for the refrigerator.

You can’t simply wrap the refrigerator in insulation because it needs room to breathe, and the coils need airflow to cool off when it is running. Depending on your environment, you can build a small shed or enclosure to encapsulate your refrigerator.

You can install as much insulation as you’d like to get the room up to a stable temperature range. A simple incandescent bulb may be sufficient to raise the temperature in the winter.

Remember that the EZ Bake oven that kids used to bake cakes? It was powered by nothing more than an ordinary household incandescent light bulb. A fan blowing across the coils may be sufficient to cool it in the summer.

Garage Quirks

GFCI
Garage electricity may be wired differently. It may be based upon a ground-fault interrupter circuit (GFCI). GFCI’s were created to prevent people from being electrocuted from things like dropping a hairdryer in the sink.

The GFCI can be tripped more easily than ordinary household electrical circuits. It is designed to respond in fractions of a second for even a small 5-milliamp spike. You may not check your refrigerator every day to notice and can come home to a fridge full of spoiled foods.

Fire Hazards
Most people store cleaning items and automotive repair items in their garages. If you have gasoline for the lawn mower, oil jugs, or other flammable substances near your refrigerator, you increase the risks for lighting your garage up like a book of matches.

The coils are transferring heated refrigerant and can raise the temperature of objects in close proximity.

Power Switches
Many garages are wired for convenience and safety by having everything connected to the main light switch. If you have a switch located on the circuit of your refrigerator, you run the risk of being absentminded and flicking the switch one day instead of pulling the string on the light.

Other family members, especially kids, may not be very responsible when it comes to remembering the switch. Why take the risk? Make sure your refrigerator is properly grounded and wired correctly.

Sawdust and Debris
Many people do some woodworking projects in their garages and can accumulate a lot of sawdust and other debris. This is a potential drag on the efficiency of your refrigerator if it clings to the coils.

Always be sure to keep the coils clean and allow for sufficient operating airflow around your refrigerator.

Mold and Mildew
Unfinished garages are more susceptible to the development of mold and mildew. This can build up on the seal from external humidity condensing on the cool surface when it is hot and humid outside.

Keeping the seals of your refrigerator clean is paramount to preventing the spread of these toxins to the internal environment where they can grow even easier.

Conclusion

Now that you know why those garage refrigerators thaw out your frozen goods in the winter and drive up your electric bills in the summer, you are better equipped to prevent the damages. Whether you decide to build an enclosure to control the temperature or simply go for the convenience of a reasonably priced outdoor garage-ready appliance rated for your climate, either choice is sure to save you money down the line by avoiding burnt out refrigerators and high electric bills.

If your garage is not perfectly wired for a pricey refrigerator, it never hurts to call an electrician. The bills you pay for improvements to your property can always be kept as further evidence of its value. A fully finished garage may be an even better investment idea if you don’t do a lot of heavy work in the garage.

You might want to consider keeping your extra fridge in a basement if you have space and simply need extra storage. If you need the convenience, consider investing in a portable mini fridge or a simple cooler for those days when you are out there working and need a drink or snack.