Sunday, April 04, 2010

Passive Solar Cleaning

Can you guess what this is?


I hope you read the title of the post.

The little glass cups, upside down in the bag, are used to hold the special candles I light as the Jewish Sabbath and holidays begin.  When the candles burn out, they leave some wax and a metal "plate."  Normally I clean them by putting them in a plastic container, add some laundry detergent and boiling water.  The problem is that it's now Passover and the container I use is from a food forbidden on Passover.  I needed to clean the glass cups, at least get the metal out before putting in a new candle.

I don't have enough for all I need over the holiday.  I light seven candles each time.  My married daughter is coming for the last day of Pesach, and she lights five.  A friend lit two candles in my house.  That's:
7X3=21+5+2=28

That many I don't have.  So I put some out in the sun to melt out the metal.  And it worked.  I hope the sun is strong tomorrow morning.

4 comments:

Tzivia said...

#1, shh, don't tell my dh that you do it yourself... I have told him it is a tremendous zechus for the family for a husband to set up his wife's lechters. ;-)
#2, if these are the same neronim we use, he usually just "flicks" out the leftover metal circle with a strong butter knife. Might work, in a pinch; we've never tried it the solar way, but then, we don't have as much sun here...!

Batya said...

My husband puts the candle in. I have to do all the preparation. When he "cleans them," it's by scraping with his nails, which are very strong. But then he leaves all the dirt, wax and metal next to them as one big mess. So, I prefer cleaning them myself. Non-Pesach it's done in the laundry room sink.

Pesky Settler said...

Either spritz the cups with Pam and the leftover stuff will pop out with a knife or a strong fingernail.

Or soak in hot water and it will loosen up the wax too... and you can clean them if there are any scorch marks.

Batya said...

I just finished cleaning the rest with hot water, soaking etc, much more reliable than the sun. Passover's over.
Thanks pesky!