A New Life For Coffee...

I have had my coffee maker for at least 10 years. I have not had any problem with it at all. I know i had it that long because my 2yr old grandson was calling it a car wash. About a week or so later i picked it up to clean it and heard a noise inside. Thinking something was wrong with it i looked inside the water resovor to find a hot wheel car. LOL!!! I was drinking hot wheel water for tht long. He is 10 years old now and im still using the same coffee maker. Minus the hot wheel car.

Actually yes, I have. I came to this discussion hoping you had some other tips in store, but I try to do this once a month, because I don't like having to deal with the clogs or the taste when it hasn't been cleaned in a while. Now, if only I could figure out what it was I did to the automatic brew button, and how to fix it......

Yep, I learned this many many years ago by just reading the booklet that came with my coffee maker. I have used this method with each of my coffee pots since learning. My husband was going through a coffee pot every six months no matter the brand or cost. He was drinking about 10 pots of coffee day though and it says that you have to do it for every 30 pots. I am glad he has cut back on coffee because now I don't have to buy the gallon jugs of white vinegar now..it will stink the house up for a few but it is worth it for the coffee pot will work way faster..and save you money.

I do not have a coffee machine but I have used white vinegar to clean my percolator, my electric vegie steamer, my electric jug and many other household uses. White vinegar is great for so many things!

I clean mine about once a month but I just started doing this when I got my new one. My old one quit working, just shut down one morning and boy, was I ticked off! The darn thing was only 5 years old! I didn't throw it away, though, so I'll see if I can try this on it. I thought when it stopped working, it was gone. I'm not optimistic but I'll try it. I liked that coffeemaker, I could time the brew for when I got up and it had an automatic shut off on it. Thanks!

i CLEAN MY POT REGULARLY. i USE BLEACH INSTEAD OF VINEGAR.

Hey, instead of just pouring the vinegar down the drain, put a cup of baking soda in your drains first, then rinse them away with the vinegar, and the hot water. It prevents clogs there as well. We do this about once a month as our community has hard water that really clogs up the coffee makers. Even the cheap ones last a whole lot longer when you do this. The hot vinegar will also kill weeds growing between the pavers in your sidewalks.

I must see if this tip works for my little espresso maker,which has been making a lor of noise,but producing very little this past while..I bought a stovetop espresso maker recently to stand in for it,and have an electric filter coffee maker too,the last one of which I had must have somehow burned out an element,as it stopped working and heating the built in hotplate..(Yep,I like my coffee!)

My coffee maker left me long ago... I never drink the stuff myself.

Ironic you started this post hours before mine and yes, I have cleaned my coffee pot for years this way. The post I started had to do with a new pot we got, (new as in new for us) and I did clean it this way and still it is VERY slow and makes only somuch coffee. I hate it and was told I need to probably do it more than once to unclog it since I don't know how the person who had it cleaned it.

Oh yeah, hubby and I clean our coffee maker the same way and we do find that the coffee tastes much better when cleaned. It doesn't make it run any faster but it does brighten the taste and it does extend the life of the coffee maker. Now when our coffee maker does quit, we keep the coffee pot just in case the new one gets broke, then we'll have the old one to replace it with.

hi twoey my son found that out and did the same thing you did with the vinegar, and he hates the smell of vinegar, but he did get it clean and it worked perfectly again. just was clogged and then he got it all' unclogged. I had never done that so I learned something that day that' I watched him get it all unclogged. I love vinegar as it has so many household uses and its inexpensive and really works for so many cleaning projects.

I don't drink coffee, but I used to work for an office that made about 20 pots in every 8 hour day. Along with my administrative duties, I was also responsible for the office equipment. Usually that was keeping the computer equipment up & running & the copier in tip top shape. The manager was po'd that we were going to be buying another coffee maker. I had heard of the wonders of vinegar on cleaning out a shower head & decided that if it'd work on a shower head, it would work on a coffee maker. So, I go to the manager & ask him for permission to buy a large bottle of vinegar in order to save the coffee maker. He reluctantly approved thinking there was no way it was goig to work. I bought the vinegar & arrived at work early so as NOT to interfere with the coffee drinkers' fix. I had to do the vinegar wash 3 times in order to get it as clear as I wanted. Then I did the clear water rinse 4 times to make sure there was NO vinegar aftertaste. I hid the vinegar bottle under my desk so nobody would know what I had done & cleaned & polished the machine. I made the first pot of coffee for the morning & waited for my first victim. He's a particular picky coffee drinker & he raved how much better the coffee tasted with the new machine. I stood there telling him how hard I had worked to make sure he had good coffee to drink. The manager walks in & this guy is telling him about the great new coffeemaker I had gotten for the office & how he should let me buy ALL the office equipment. The boss roared with laughter & told him he liked his idea & then asked me to go to his office to discuss my new responsibilities. We walked down the hall giggling like school girls & the boss took me to lunch that day to say thank you!!! Vinegar is a GREAT way to clean coffee machines as well as clogged shower heads.

I don't make coffee on a regular enough basis for this trick to do me any good, but it is one that I know none the less because my mother is an avid coffee drinker and she had coffee makers that lasted for years because she did this about every other month. It actually is something that has to be done quite regularly around here because we have water here that has a lot of lime in it so it doesn't take very long at all for any of our appliances that use water to build up quite a limescale buildup.

I have been cleaning my coffee pot this way for year and have only had two coffee pots in about 15 years. I also clean it this way every couple of months.

I've heard about this, but since I barely ever drink coffee, there's no point in owning a coffee maker...

We don't have a coffee maker. Not worth it when only one of us drinks coffee on a regular basis, instead, we have the instant coffee that you just add boiling water to. White vinegar, on the other hand, we go through lots of. I was advised by my washing machine sales person to use it in place of commercial fabric softeners, as it would help to remove and prevent the build up of the oils and grime from such products and keep our machine running more smoothly and extend its life. Admitidly, I still use the commercial fabric softners as much as the vinegar, but I do notice my machine is not as grimey or clunky as the old one was. I guess white vinegar has many uses.

I know how to clean the coffee maker and I don't mind doing it. The problem is every time I do this my hubby tells me that I am getting rid of the good taste. He say's, "Honey, I just got it where I want it!" Then, he smiles at me. I don't know if he is picking on me or if I really am cleaning it out and taking away the good taste! lol Well, to bad I keep cleaning it! I just can't go near his thermos. He looks at me like I took away his best friend if I clean those. He has two of them! He drinks coffee all day long. I can't do that! *Peace and Love get's you through everything in Life*

I've never tossed a coffe maker out because of clog. I had a wonderful all glass perk one that sat right on the stove top and the internal glass broke - man I miss perked coffee. Yes, I clean out my coffee pot once a month. I found if you do it more often the lest times you have to run the vinegar water through. It was a neat little trick my mom told me about when went from perked coffee to an automatic.

Yes we have done this at my moms house. the coffee pot had been running slow and barley driping for a while. when my moms cousin can for a visit during the hoildays, he decied to fix the problem. he showed us the tick with vinegar. so every now and then we clean it out that way. we may have throuwn out a good coffee maker with out realizing it.