Is shellite an effective disinfectant?

martymoose

martymoose

Hero member
Location
Sydney, Australia
I wear disposable gloves for working on bikes, but have access to shellite (brake cleaner) which I am guessing is alcohol based. It evaporates like metho. Anyone know if it is effective for cleaning surfaces?  Keys, handlebars, etc.  I am wearing gloves all day at the moment.
Cheers
Marty
 
martymoose said:
I wear disposable gloves for working on bikes, but have access to shellite (brake cleaner) which I am guessing is alcohol based. It evaporates like metho. Anyone know if it is effective for cleaning surfaces?  Keys, handlebars, etc.  I am wearing gloves all day at the moment.
Cheers
Marty
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I listened to a small report [local TV news] on the importance of washing our hands with soap and water for 20 sec's minimum.
The virus has a fatty outer layer which the washing breaks down dispersing the virus.
Hand sanitizer with a minimum 50% alcohol works most effectively if your hands are clean.

Just saying, Ian.
 
Shellite is a hydrocarbon (oil based), not unlike petrol.  No idea it's effectiveness but I would assume it does nothing unless info to the contrary can be found.  Keys, handlebars etc I would figure using soapy water to be the simplest and most plentiful.

When coming in from outside our block I'm presently cleaning everything I've touched with soap and water - car keys, credit cards and all that.  It's not that weird for me since I learnt to clean machining jobs when they were finished by just taking them when I cleaned my oily hands and wash everything under soap and water as I washed my hands.

There's been a reminder go around today to clean hands after using any sort of shared device like a petrol pump, etc.  I did a shopping trip on Monday and we cleaned every piece as they were unpacked from the bags.  The checkout operator is handling every item touched by every person.  Gloves don't really do anything other than place the virus on an outer layer which is easy to remove (but there's not enough gloves in the world to be constantly changing them right now).  Word is you're not typically getting infected through the skin anyway, they're more a useful reminder not to touch your face when gloved up, and when you DO remove them then yeah your hands should still be uninfected beneath them.  The other thing to do if treating your home as a 'quarantine zone' is to clean before entering, not forgetting the soles of your shoes if you wear them indoors.

I wonder how the poor folks with proper OCD are going these days?  We had a guy at work a few years back who walked around with paper towel in each hand so he didn't touch anything.  If he was walking down a flight of stairs and you entered from the other direction he would turn tail and run back to the next floor and wait till they were clear.
 
Shellite is not alcohol. It's very much like petrol, being a similar distillate of petroleum-type compounds. You could probably run your car on it, but doesn't have the additives for internal combustion engines that petrol normally has. Nor does it have the dye that's added to petrol so it's a clear liquid. I couldn't find any info on its effectiveness as an anti-viral agent.

Alcohol would be a better bet. Isopropyl alcohol (AKA rubbing alcohol) is best. Ethanol is about 90% as effective as isopropyl, and methanol a bit less effective than ethanol. Good luck finding isopropyl alcohol at present. It's about as rare as dunny paper. If you can find some methylated spirit, that'll do. Metho is basically ethanol with a little bit of methanol added to discourage people from drinking it (methanol is toxic).

I found a bottle of metho in the cupboard under my sink, so I put some in a spray bottle for disinfecting surfaces.
 
breganzane said:
I wonder how the poor folks with proper OCD are going these days?  We had a guy at work a few years back who walked around with paper towel in each hand so he didn't touch anything.  If he was walking down a flight of stairs and you entered from the other direction he would turn tail and run back to the next floor and wait till they were clear.
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I worked with a bloke "Krinkle" who I almost hit in the head with the dunny block door, when opening the door at work one day. He was crouched down opening the door from inside by the bottom of the door. He'd never touch the handles. Sometimes he would lurk outside the dunny block waiting for someone else to go in, so he could follow them in. Interesting chap.
 
Some cultures don't sit, I think they were standing on the seat and squatting and that tends to make a huge mess. Luckily there was a fire hose nearby on a job site I was on. Years later I was working in a foundry and they had signs in the toilets explaining how to use them. It's a big world out there.
 
My place in Thailand only had a sqat but the new house we built across the road the Misses installed a unflushing western toilet for me. Still go across to the old house for a crap as I prefer to sqat 8)
 
Dellortoman said:
Alcohol would be a better bet. Isopropyl alcohol (AKA rubbing alcohol) is best. Ethanol is about 90% as effective as isopropyl, and methanol a bit less effective than ethanol. Good luck finding isopropyl alcohol at present. It's about as rare as dunny paper
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That's the stuff! 99.9% pure isopropyl alcohol is great for cleaning.
Ironically we also use this stuff at the power station for the mask face-fit testing machine, the alcohol molecules stick to particles that leak into the mask for detection.
That's how I know how poor most masks(P1&P2) are at stopping particles getting in! You need P3 HEPA filters and rubber mask for effective filtration and a good seal.

Now the shelves are being stripped of alcohol of all sorts too! Blimey!
 
WA gov just introduced a new rule on booze sales. 1 x carton beer/cider/mixed
                                                                    or 3 x bottles wine
                                                                    or 1 x sprits
They reckon the cops have more than enough to do than deal with pissed idiots!!
 
I am genuinely surprised this thread in this company has got this far without the obvious answer....

Yes, Shellite is an effective disinfectant - if it's followed up with a lit match.

Otherwise, keep it for parts washing.
 
Piranha Brother 2 said:
But maybe COVID is fire-resistant.  Let's hope not! :o :D
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I've been doing a bit of homework on this bloody virus:

Apparently it can't survive above 60? C. So if you feel inclined to sterilise stuff (such as take-away food) you could do it on a low setting of your kitchen oven. When the guy delivers your pizza, dispose of the filthy box and bung the pizza in the oven for 10 mins to make sure it's above 60C. Or maybe use the microwave if you prefer. Note that microwave radiation doesn't kill germs, it's the heat that kills them. So irradiating stuff that doesn't get hot (eg. plastic) won't be effective.

Dishwashers also heat the water to near boiling, so that's effective too for utensils etc.
Hand washing of stuff in the kitchen sink wouldn't be hot enough. Most people would find 60? water too hot to put their hands in. But the soap and water would give the virus a hard time and most of them would go down the plug hole. I think that's how hand washing works. It doesn't necessarily kill the bugs, just flushes them away.

I wondered about drinking water being a transmission vector, so I did a bit of research. I'm reassured that municipal water utilities use filtration and disinfectant additives (such as chlorine) so tap water should be pretty safe.
If you have tank water, don't worry. I reckon it's very unlikely that someone with the virus would have sneezed on your roof!

Swimming pools and hot tubs should have chlorine in the water.

The virus only survives for a limited time outside a host. So if you leave potentially contaminated stuff lying around for long enough, it'll be OK, especially outside in the sun (UV light is effective at killing viruses).  The time varies depending on the type of surface and it's still under investigation, but it seems we're looking at days rather than hours. Oddly enough, the virus survives pretty well on stainless steel surfaces (possibly up to 3 days) so stainless bench tops in your kitchen may not be as clean as you think. Give them a good wipe-down with disinfectant of you're concerned about contamination from grocery bags etc.

It's a good idea for us all to become OCD germaphobes for a while. Stay clean and safe.
 
60 deg, eh Cam? Maybe climate change will finish it off ... 60 deg ain't that far from the high 40's we're getting now! Og course, it'll finish us off as well ...
 
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