Stripping and Ammonia WTH!

suzymarie

So we have ammonia stink.  I tried everything I could think of to avoid stripping (RLR, Diaper Dust, Vinegar rinse, extra hot rinse) and no dice.

 

I finally stripped with Dawn and they STILL stink like ammonia when he pees on the diaper. 

 

WTH else could the problem be?  All the reading I have done says ammonia smell when he pees = buildup and you need to strip.  But I did that!

 

We use Country Save, so that should be fine.  I switched to using BioKleen to see if switcing detergent would help- I should know tomorrow.  I could also try my Costco F&C, but I am not buying any other detergent since I have 3 giant boxes of CS already.

 

I guess as a last resort I could strip again.  Maybe I will try in the dishwasher instead of the washer.  It is a mix of pockets, with hemp and flannel inserts, fyi. 

Hippinski

At this point I'm thinking hard water. I'd try adding some Calgon or try skipping the vinegar in the rinse.

Gosh I hope you find an answer soon.

ETA: Are you doing an extra rinse at the end?  Maybe it's not build up...maybe they just aren't getting rinsed enough.

jen5-03

hmmm...

You tried all of those seperately or did you combine some of them? For example diaper dust and vinegar. I don't know what's in diaper dust, but I strongly suspect that it's just scented baking soda. If that's the case then baking soda is on the same side of the pH scale as ammonia and it's just making things worse. And vinegar is on the opposite side of the pH scale. So if you combine baking soda and vinegar, after the foaming stops you get... water.

Do all the diapers get ammonia or just the night time ones? I know that for DD, the night time diapers always smell of ammonia in the morning. There's just too much pee sitting there for too long for it to not smell that way. But they don't stink as soon as pee touches them, only in the morning. I just made vinegar a part of my normal wash routine. But earlier I did have a problem with ammonia in all her diapers that made her heiny red.

Other options for stripping....

- add Oxiclean with the Dawn. I also add some to my regular wash once a week or so.

- You could add a bit of bleach to the wash. I know that bleach is considered taboo, but the bum genius website faq says it is ok to do once in a while. Add a half cup to the wash. Bacteria can also cause ammonia smell. It's what finally killed the stink on our diapers.

- You could also boil the natural fibers.

- Dry them in the sun - ok, that's not stripping but sunlight kills all sorts of nasty things and it can't hurt.

Good luck.

Alirebco

Ok I just wrote this response in another post about ammonia.  Here is what helped ours go away. Just stripping them did not help because hte ammonia salts are still there. 

 

We only have/had ammonia stink in our nighttime diapers too and it's a recent thing.  You can do a couple of things - a vinegar soak with clean diapers (4 cups of vinegar for 4-6 hours in hot water) or an oxyclean/vinegar soak (4 cups of vinegar, 1 scoop of oxy in a little hot water).  I did just the vinegar soak and it worked for a bit but we still had ammonia.  The oxy/vinegar soak really helped get rid of it. 

We also use vinegar in the prerinse to break down the ammonia salts.  Oh and we use fitteds and pockets so I would do the soak on just the inserts and the fitteds, not the outer shells of the pockets.  Hope that helps!