On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 09:58:29AM -0400, Lee Haefele wrote: > Can matress open cell foam be cleaned or rinsed? We know our bunk has had > salt water absorbed into it and would like to get it salt free. Can we > rinse it and sun dry it for several days? Should we use any soap or > detergent?
I've always washed my cushions by laying them out on deck, soaking them with fresh water [1], pouring on a little dish soap, and then stomping the living heck out of them. It's good exercise, kinda like dancing. :) If you've never done this before, you'll be amazed (and possibly revolted) to see the kind of dirt that comes out of them. If you have white decks, you'll be able to tell when the cushions are squeaky clean, too. Drying them is easy: just leave them out on deck, and flip them about once a day. In two to three days of summer sun, they'll be nice and dry (the weight while you're flipping them will tell you when they're done.) Just hope it doesn't rain during that time... It would be nice to do this at the dock, where the fresh water is plentiful - I'd say that it takes me about 10-15 gallons to do all the cushions on the boat - but the sight of a big guy aggressively stomping around on the foredeck would probably have the marina dwellers calling the authorities in a panic. Actually, I've done it once, but I prefer to do it in the "privacy" of an anchorage, where only the other crazies, um, I mean FULL-TIME CRUISERS can see me doing this. They'll *understand*. :) [1] Except in the case where the cushions got really disgusting - i.e., mold and mildew and such - in which case I just flushed and flushed them with salt water until they were clean, then flushed them again, twice, with fresh. -- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET * _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
