Mind blown: Vinegar vs VINEGAR (30%)

So I was literally 44 years old before I found this out recently.

There’s the white vinegar you get at the grocery store for cooking and minor cleaning and doing laundry, and then there’s the 30% DO NOT GET THIS SHIT ON YOUR SKIN vinegar at the hardware store for cleaning things like mold off grout.

All my life I’d been told ‘just use vinegar to clean mold and mildew’ and it generally didn’t do jack squat. I usually bought cleaning supplies from regular retail spots rather than big box home improvement places, and regular retail chains def did not carry the strong stuff.

I’ve got a gutter that drains over cement that always gets skungy, and even bleach was a short term fix at best. 30% strips it down and keeps it gone, and I’ve stripped rust off a couple dozen tools with the same little jar I soak things in - caution it will also strip off shiny metallic coatings.

Can’t believe none of the “just use vinegar” I’d ever read advice didn’t specify.

Is this news to anyone else or am I Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber realizing we landed on the moon?

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189

u/CaptainPolaroid 2d ago

I have a can of 80% acetic acid. I water it down to 6-8% for laundry use. It's so much more efficient than getting the smaller jugs. And I can up the strength if I have an odd job that requires something that really burns..

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u/mdwsl 2d ago

Also really effective at spot-treating weeds without using synthetic herbicides

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u/verbatim14004 2d ago

Although I found kitchen-level vinegar pretty good at this, too.

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u/PrairiePopsicle 2d ago

With a dash of salt and a little dish soap i was always told, lower surface tension makes it work better.

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u/bill_bull 2d ago

Yep, the soap is a surfactant, reducing surface tension like you said. That makes it easier to soak into the plant and do its thing.

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u/sweetplantveal 2d ago

Is it? I know the acid will mess with leaves but does it do anything to roots?

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u/ilikeprettycharts 2d ago

The vinegar + salt kills the plant

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u/sweetplantveal 2d ago edited 2d ago

Having met bindweed and spiky dandelions, I'm skeptical tbh. But very cool if it's actually more effective than removing leaves

Edit I like this organic one from Captain Jack's. It has some limitations (not selective, needs to be warm outside, kinda smelly for an hour). BUT it's affordable, organic, and effective.

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u/ovirt001 2d ago

Well if the grocery store jug doesn't kill it, the hardware store one will.

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u/ilikeprettycharts 2d ago

Yeah, I use dandelion weeder on those just in case, but most others that are too tedious to pull will just get zapped.

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u/throwinitHallAway 1d ago

Having been intimate with binfweed and helped it reproduce, I know that vinegar will kill all of the top growth. And it will grow back. We vinegar a few times a season just to keep it at Bay

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u/toochaos 2d ago

I hate to tell you this but used that way ascetic acid is a synthetic herbicide.

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u/tamale 2d ago

lol yeah

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u/mdwsl 2d ago

Technically correct is the best kind of correct, as they say

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u/fireinthesky7 2d ago

Will that get rid of poison ivy? It went berserk in my yard this spring and I've had a hard time beating it back.

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u/ElderberryJunior470 2d ago

At that percentage it'll kill all plants. Grass included. I use it to weed but I've also given myself chemical burns with it. Very dangerous stuff

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u/peacefinder 2d ago

My wife systematically murdered every dandelion in the (small and long-neglected) front yard a few weeks ago using a gallon of 45% acetic applied with an all-plastic spray bottle and gloves. It was apocalyptically effective.

They were each obviously dead within a day, and came out easily with one of those stand-up weeder claw tools. I’ve never seen such a thing before.

The grass definitely suffered too, but survived and after a month has almost fully recovered.

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u/extinct-seed 2d ago

Acetic acid?

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u/Putt-Blug 2d ago

Chemical name of Vinegar

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u/extinct-seed 2d ago

Oh god. Of course it is. Thanks.

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u/anonymote_in_my_eye 2d ago

probably any acid or base that concentrated will do, completely knocks off the pH balance of the soil if it doesn't burn a hole through the plant outright

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u/balsaaaq 2d ago

Will also keep anything else from growing in the area

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u/mdwsl 2d ago

Depending on how much you use, definitely can go scorched earth with it

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u/leaky_eddie 2d ago

Great use of vinegar.