At Healthy Homes Housekeeping, it’s our pride to offer clients numerous house cleaning services, from standard maintenance cleaning up to deep cleaning, move-in and move-out services and more. We use several common cleaning products and solutions to accomplish our high-quality standards, and one of the single most common here is hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide, which used to be used as a wound disinfectant, has changed over time in its uses. Now it’s most useful as an incredibly effective cleaning solution, one that’s applied in numerous potential areas. This two-part blog series will offer some basics on hydrogen peroxide and the home cleaning areas where our staff most often uses it, plus some other household uses you should be aware of for this important cleaning compound.

Hydrogen Peroxide Basics

Hydrogen peroxide is a very simple chemical compound, one made up of simply water along with an extra oxygen atom, for the abbreviation H₂O₂. This makes it an oxidizer, meaning it can break down other compounds, and it carries several important properties, including antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and bleaching capabilities.

In addition, hydrogen peroxide is a strong solution. It can cut through various stain formats and even rust in most cases, plus is completely healthy for humans to use and be around. It’s no wonder it’s one of the single most common items used for household cleaning.

Bathroom and Kitchen Uses

When performing various cleaning tasks around your home, hydrogen peroxide may be used in various rooms – but will most commonly be seen in the bathroom and kitchen. Some common bathroom uses:

• To brighten dull grout
• To remove mold and other stains or hazards
• To disinfect a variety of surfaces
• To remove soap scum from tile, glass, porcelain and various metal fixtures

Some common kitchen uses:

• To disinfect countertops, handles, the inside of the microwave and more
• To clean tile, linoleum, and even certain laminate floors

Our next several sections will go over some of the other general household uses of hydrogen peroxide, both for our professional cleaners and for homeowners.

Sanitizing

As we noted above, hydrogen peroxide is ideal for sanitizing and disinfecting various items. This makes it perfect for various cooking or preparation uses, including sanitizing cutting boards, countertop surfaces and more. It’s especially valuable for porous surfaces where various contaminants may have seeped in below the surface.

Stain Removal

There are also a number of materials that hydrogen peroxide will remove unsightly stains from, including stone like unsealed marble. This is a type that stains very easily, and other methods often struggle to remove these stains – but mixing some hydrogen peroxide with flour and covering the stain with the resulting paste, then letting it sit for several hours will generally lift the stain (you might have to do this more than once).

For more on hydrogen peroxide and its uses within cleaning and other areas of the home, or to learn about any of our cleaning solutions, speak to the staff at Healthy Homes Housekeeping today.