So where does all this come from? Let me try to explain:

Background

A woman supposedly ran her dishwasher with vinegar added and her parrots died

Fact

Vinegar contains approximately 5% Acetic Acid (C2H4O2) the active ingredient) and water.

1. Decomposition

At dishwasher temperatures acetic acid does not decompose. The decomposition temperature is way above the operating temperature of a dishwasher. If only vinegar was used in the dishwasher it would need to decompose in order to be able to form new compounds.

2. Chemical Reaction

It is possible that a chemical reaction between the detergent (base) and the vinegar (acid) occurred. But without knowing what exactly was in the detergent, no one can say what chemical compound might have been created or if it even was this and not something else that killed the birds.

However, this is not relevant when talking about using vinegar for coffee machine descaling. Just don’t mix it with bases.

3. Evaporation

As the boiling point of acetic acid lies above that of water (the main ingredient in vinegar) you also do not have the problem of acetic acid evaporating before the water and forming a highly concentrated acetic acid cloud which would be corrosive to the respiratory system.

Conclusion

Vinegar when heated is no more dangerous than when used cold. However, vinegar is an irritant to the respiratory system, thus should be used away from birds and in well ventilated areas.

Apart from that: Citric acid works way better for decalcifying coffee machines than vinegar. Make sure you calculate the correct concentration for your coffeemaker based on the manufacturer recommendations.

Here is a MSDS for White Vinegar from Flexo for those of you who would like to dig a little deeper.

As to my qualifications? I am a Chemical Engineer. And I am very cautious with the lives of my parrots. But this is just a non-sensical pointless scare.

[See image gallery at www.thebirdschool.com] Being a woman of action, I purchased a big (10 kg) container 60% Acetic Acid (which is the active ingredient in vinegar) and a similarly big tub of baking soda (5kg) online. Both arrived this week and this Saturday was designated action day. After having a really hard time opening the safety seal on the acetic acid (success was finally achieved with a pipe wrench) I carefully (plastic gloves! Window open for ventilation! Should have worn goggles as well, but did not bother) poured some in a measuring cup and from there into an empty bottle. Pouring from the huge container directly into the flimsy plastic bottle seemed a recipe for disaster (or at least major spillage). Can’t be too careful, you know.

That feat accomplished, I made up some working solution: I figured 60% concentrate would likely be too strong to use, but had no clue of the acetic acid concentration in vinegar (I know google is only as far away as my desk, but I was on a mission here and had no time for googling :-)). On a hunch I diluted it five times which would be around 12% final concentration.
For the baking soda I used an empty spaghetti sauce jar and punched some holes into the lid to turn it into a shaker.
[See image gallery at www.thebirdschool.com]
Then I set to work. Still sporting my surgical cloves, I dipped a sponge into the acetic acid solution and then then shook some baking soda on top of it. The stuff foamed like crazy. Cool! Why are chemical reactions like that always so satisfying?? As a chemical engineer I really should be beyond this little girl’s enthusiasm over foaming baking soda, but hey, I guess that’s the part of me that never grows up.

Then I tested it on my kitchen sink. Holy cow! That stuff works. This is by far the most effectively working cleanser I have ever used. Ever! Unbelievable. And it is less toxic and way cheaper than all the commercial products I have tried over the years. I am impressed. I will never win any awards for good housekeeping, but I am actually excited about trying this on my floors now. That is definitely a first for me.

The next step will be to optimize this cleaner by finding out the lowest concentration that still works well. I finally did google and found out that most household vinegars are around 5% concentration. This is coincidentally the same concentration that was found by a test done by “Good Housekeeping” to be 90% effective against mold and 99.9% effective against bacteria. Against viruses, vinegar does not seem to work that well. I suppose 5% is the concentration to try next then.

[See image gallery at www.thebirdschool.com] So I filled a 2 liter pump-spray bottle with 5% acetic acid solution and set on my living room floors. These get awfully dirty quick because of dog traffic with direct access to backyard mud. I sprayed the floor and let it sit for about a minute. Then I wiped it with my mop. Amazing. The dirt lifted straight off. No scrubbing needed. Even better – at that concentration the acetic acid does not make my home smell like a salad bowl. It smells pretty much to nothing. I have seen recipes online, where vinegar was put in jars with lemon peels for lemon scented cleansers. That might be worth a try for that “just cleaned” smell. But I’m pretty happy with no smell either.

What I am not so happy about is my hands. For the floor experiment I forgot to don the plastic gloves. Just rinsing the mop with my hands was enough to make them feel dry and rough. Thus, for the future: gloves are a must when cleaning with vinegar. If this is really the only downside I can fin – I can live with that as gloves are a must as well with all the other cleaners I have used.

In terms of financials: Including shipping I paid €33.85 for 10kg (=approx. 10l) of 60% Acetic acid. If I dilute it down to 5%, it means that I am paying €0.28 per litre of the most effective cleaner I have ever used or for those of us working in non-metric terms: US$0.35 per quart. Unbelievable! Can’t beat that! Needless to say – I’ll stick with this.