Steaming vertically.

I have always make it a point to live humbly. But somehow the Wifey has convinced me to purchase a vertical steamer in place of the traditional iron.



I have seen the vertical steamer at work in fashion retail outlets, looking at how easy clothes get straightened without the use of an ironing board.

It looks easy, just hang the clothes up, and use the vertical steamer on it. No need to reposition the clothes, everything is easy mode.

So I paid $400+ for a good vertical steamer. Appliances are meant to last me for a long time (presuming they don't spoil that fast), and if I have to pay a premium to make my remaining ironing days easy, then I will pay for it.

Call it an investment to make a routine job easier.

So I started using the vertical iron a week ago. With my brains, how hard could it be to figure out?

So I filled the water tank with water, hang up the first piece of clothes, and get ready to jam around with the steamer hose.

But then, it happened. Drip drip, the steamer hose was dripping water along with steam as I was holding it. Ouch ouch! =(

Ironing the clothes while trying to be mindful of dripping hot water was a scary exercise. Wifey tried to showed me how to do it, but I can see she was not exactly too comfortable with it (probably because I warned her that the water will drip).

So I surrendered and got an ironing board. Its pretty embarrassing, splurging $400+ on a vertical steamer, but using it horizontally like a normal $50 iron. And the steamer hose leaked more water than before as I was ironing the clothes on the board.

Being the researcher that Wifey was born to be, she surfed around the Net and read about other people's experience with the vertical steamer. Apparently, I was not alone. There were plenty of newbuyers who were not comfortable using it. But apparently the reason was not due to a faulty appliance, but the fact that we did not use it correctly.

Wifey read me the 2 secrets of vertical steaming.
(1) The hose of the vertical steamer has to be held vertically, perpendicular to the ground. Once you slant it, or put it on iron board, water will drip due to condensation.
(2) One of the hands must be used to pull the clothes taut (while the clothes hanger pull the other side).

So the Wifey got me to discard my ironing board and try this method. I was a little hesitant at first, but heck, Limpeh is a YES MAN! I wanna learn to use this tool to its maximum potential.

And so I did it. Not perfect, but no more drips. The forum says that when done correctly, it only takes a minute to iron stuffs. I probably took a few minutes longer, but I will get there someday.

But still it’s a good help for most clothes. ^_^

Housework should not end up being housechores.

It should be noted that the ironing board isn’t totally useless, because the vertical steamer apparently has one little problem still – the inability to iron lines on shirts and trousers.

Nonetheless, the score stands as follows.
Shingo T -- 1, Obstacle – 0.

Nothing can stop me, only I can stop myself.