Problems with a steam iron

Just Askin a écrit :

I had similar problems to yours with my steam generator iron after I ran a descaler through it!! mine is supposed to be run on boiled water not distilled or straight tap water according to the manufacturers instructions. However I descaled it as we live in a hard water area, and it was showing signs of scale.

I solved it by literally picking the whole unit up, after unplugging it and taking it to the sink filling it with water and tipping it out , rinsing and tipping until what I was tipping out ran clear. The sole plate I rubbed at gently with an old green scotch-brite type scourer, you could try very fine glass paper

I hope that helps some. Does your iron have a help line in the instruction book or a helpful hints page on the manufacturers website prahaps. Claire in Montréal France

Are you using the type of water recommended in the manual? Some irons require distilled water for best results.

-Irene

I had that problem too a long time ago, and have been using it now without water for years. Seems to work better. (for me anyway) :-)

Katherine

I never steam-iron shirts. When a steam iron gets your fabric all limp and relaxed and flat, it keeps right on steaming and dampening. If you dry-iron slightly-damp fabric, it gets steamed and relaxed, then it gets dry and holds its flat, so you finish ironing much faster.

In the bad old days, when we ironed a bushel of clothes every week, we sprinkled water on shirts, rolled them into balls, and left them overnight in an oilcloth-lined bushel basket, under a damp towel or, later, a piece of plastic sheet.

Nowadays, I spray shirts on their hangers with a fine mist of water and let it even out for a minute -- long enough for the iron to finish heating, or long enough to spray another shirt or two. I use a hand-pumped air-pressure sprayer from a kitchen-gimcrack store that was intended to spray oil -- it doesn't work at all in the kitchen, but has become indispensable in the laundry room.

If I need to touch up something after ironing it dry, I can spray again, or if a rumple is *really* stubborn, I'll spray a scrap of rag and iron it dry on the rumple. For some reason, ironing through a damp cloth is more persuasive than anything short of using undiluted starch to glue the fabric to the side of the fridge.

Joy Beeson

Joy, I remember my mother putting the damp clothes in the fridge in the summer, so they didn't get mildewed. And when the Dr. Pepper bottle cap came with holes, so you could recycle the bottle as a sprinkler for the ironing.

Which reminds me -- you can "wallpaper" a wall with fabric using starch. It used to be that military housing had rules against painting and wallpapering, and military wives got really tired of the govt. issue paint that faced them no matter where they lived. They would "wallpaper" their apartment with fabric, which they could pull off when they moved, and it didn't damage the walls or change the color.

And that reminds me of how my Uncle Jimmy showed us how he "ironed" his neckerchief when he was in the Navy in the 50's. He washed it, then flattened it onto the wall, anchored with a broom handle in the middle. It would dry flat and smooth. I always thought that was ingenious.

I solved this problem on my own by researching various solutions on the Internet and trying them until I found one that worked.

This problem was being caused by the fact that this new iron gets quite a bit hotter than my old iron. In essence, the cotton heat/steam setting is too hot for the cotten/polyester blend shirts I usually wear. This new iron is getting so hot that it is, at the microscopic level, burning/melting the fabric and this burned/melted material is accumulating on the bottom of the iron. Enough of this residue had collected on the soleplate so that, after about the fifth time I used the iron, some rubbed off on the shirt I was ironing, creating the stains I mentioned earlier.

I tried several methods to remove this residue from the soleplate. The one that worked was making a thick paste of water and baking soda and spooning some of this on a Scotch Brite "Dobie" scouring pad, then gently scouring the soleplate in a circular motion. It took about a half-hour to get all the residue off the soleplate, but I did not scratch the ceramic surface.

I then experimented with lowering the temperature of my iron by setting it to the next highest setting, the "Wool" setting. This was hot enough to iron the cotten/poly shirts successfully without causing the burn/melting problems.

I'm still trying to find a way to get the brown stains out of the shirt that I was ironing when I discovered the problem. Today I tried a "Magic Wand" stain remover stick. I rubbed this on the stains than laundered. It may have removed a little bit, but the stains were still there after laundering.

Are you using distilled water, that shouldn't have any iron in it. If not try it as that's what I use and have no problems. Rollie