Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

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Tom d'Angler
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by Tom d'Angler »

I very rarely get an upset stomach but in the last six months I have had it a record three times.

The first was 90 minutes after eating a Domino's pizza. The second was 1 hour after eating fish and chips (the fish actually tasted "funny" but not off, so I wasn't overly concerned, although I should have been). The third, and by far the worst, was 90 minutes after eating shrimp fried rice from my local Chinese takeaway. (The last one was so bad, I thought I was going to die from the stomach cramps, plus I suffered a massive shart while on my knees vomiting down the khazi, much to Mrs d'A's amusement :cussing: )

Despite the introduction of the Hygiene Rating System, it seems that local councils are not following up often enough as the three takeaways that caused me problems are rated 4, 5, and 5 stars (out of 5) respectively. It really has put me off eating takeaways.

Having said that, I have no problem with continuing to eat my favourite, McDonald's, once a week because, after working there for more than a decade, I know the effort they put into keeping the food safe. I have a friend who was an Environmental Health Officer and he said that, as a rule, EHOs have very little interest in catching out the local takeaways because there isn't any kudos in it for them, so they put most of their efforts into catching out the big companies. He also confirmed that McDonald's is consistently the most hygienically-safe place to eat out, KFC is by far the worst, closely followed by most kebab shops. When I worked at McD's I got to know the local EHO inspectors quite well as they would visit us regularly and often brought along trainee EHOs to see "what a good food place should be like". But the biggest compliment of all was when the EHOs would have lunch in our store at the end of their visit.

Taking takeaways out of the equation, washing your hands properly before you eat anything that involves you touching the food before it goes in your mouth (because can you REALLY trust that everyone else has washed their hands properly after going for a pony before they touch the toilet light pull, toilet door handle, cutlery draw handle, fridge door, kettle, kitchen tap, tomato sauce bottle, blah, blah, blah...), is by far the most effective way to avoid an upset stomach.
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by dand99 »

Well, interesting reading of the replies from the Grey's anatomy forum...

Thanks to the one person who actually tried to reply to the question - although I am still not too much the wiser, as to whether or not it's a bad idea to have Hammerite on the inside of a dishwasher.....
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by OchAye »

You suspect something you have done maybe wrong, and you expect a forum of handymen and professional painters to figure out if the minute(?)[*] quantities of hammerite that you might ingest could cause upset tummies.

A doctor would tell you to stop using the dishwasher because other bacteria as well as the hammerite may be there that cause you the bother. If you want to test it, switch half your family to not using "anything" from the dishwasher, and wait and see what happens in the next two weeks or so.

Caveat. I am not a doctor and I don't have a dishwasher. The Forfar bridies were very good.

---

[*] I guess minute quantities of hammerite based on a few 3-5 tiny spots of overpainted rust. Of course you may have rust spots the size of 50p coins and a few of them could mean a significant part of the bottom panel of the dishwasher. How long is a piece of string?
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by Tom d'Angler »

Thanks to the one person who actually tried to reply to the question
I think you'll find more than one person "tried to reply"! Maybe you didn't like the answer I gave i.e. the most likely cause is that a member or member(s) of your family have poor personal hygiene. That doesn't take away from the fact that we did try to answer your question. Not exactly the way to get help in the future...
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by OchAye »

Tom, if the OP has children of school age, he and his family will get every bug going, not as easy to pin point it to personal hygiene.
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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by dewaltdisney »

I would say that it is probably due to cross contamination. A viral bug is passing between you all and I second the ramping up the personal hygiene whilst you are all at risk. Wiping door handles, taps and any common surfaces that hands touch with Dettol will help and it is essential to wash hands frequently.

Our guts can handle quite high levels of bacterial matter but a virus is different. In time the family immune systems will cope with it but the right sort of preventative measures will certainly help.

I do not think the dishwasher paint is causing this as the particle dilution will reduce any contamination to microns.

Hope you all get over it soon.

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Re: Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by Tom d'Angler »

Tom, if the OP has children of school age, he and his family will get every bug going, not as easy to pin point it to personal hygiene.
Bugs spread to parents by children catching something at school are usually colds, sore throats, etc., because they are spread by coughing and sneezing (and still points to poor personal hygiene as it is spread by people not covering the nose and mouth when sneezing of coughing).

The original question included "I've been trying to pin down the source of family-wide tummy upsets recently".

In the vast majority of cases, "tummy upsets" are caused by poor personal hygiene, especially if they are "family-wide", as in this case.

Of course it is possible for school children to pass tummy upsets from other school children and then on to the rest of their family, but, again, only through poor personal hygiene.

My EHO chum agrees with this. He also said when members of the public have tummy upsets after eating at a restaurant, that too is down to poor personal hygiene because in the vast majority of cases as it is caused by a staff member not washing their hands after using the toilet.

I understand that no man likes to think his wife and/or children don't wash their hands properly after going for a crap but that is by far the most likely cause of "family-wide tummy upsets", so that is the issue that needs addressing, rather than being miffed at people who state the bleeding obvious.
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Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by notrub »

Old thread I know - but interested to know how successful the repair was as I have a similar issue with my baskets.

Note also - I'm a PhD medicinal chemist and I can confirm that the Hammerite was NOT responsible for your illness.

In order to BE responsible for ANY harm whatsoever, it would have to be leached off whatever it was coating, into the water and then ONTO the plates where it would stick successfully, withstanding the detergents etc. And then it would need to leach off the plates into food, and you would ALL need to get a similar dose in order to manifest the same symptoms.

Note - it is likely that trace amounts of harmful chemicals COULD be leached into the dishwasher water, but the quantity that could end up on any crockery would be trivial. And then you have to consider the types of toxins.
1) Highly lethal at very low dose - e.g. nerve agents - you AREN'T going to find these in any paint as simply taking the lid off would kill you!
2) Cumulative - e.g. Heavy metal - lead was very common in old paints, not in new ones
3) Allergenic - the serious ones are the biological ones and they're not found in paint and they wouldn't survive a dishwasher cycle if they were! Non-biological allergens have a more typical dose response curve, so tiny amounts wouldn't be noticed.
4) Carcinogenic - a LOT of things are likely to be carcinogens in a high enough concentration/exposure. Caffeine for example. Anything sufficiently carcinogenic to be dangerous in very low doses would be barred from use in paint.

In short, the quantities of ANY chemicals that DID make it onto the plates would be FAR FAR below any harmful dose, so even if the COSHH data sheet says Toxic, or Harmful, it's irrelevant because that would be with respect to exposure to the paint itself.
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Hammerite on dishwasher tray - toxic ??

Post by notrub »

"In the vast majority of cases, "tummy upsets" are caused by poor personal hygiene, especially if they are "family-wide", as in this case. "

Oh and that is rot!

Gastroenteritis viruses don't magically appear out of thin air. They're passed from infected person to infected person just like every other bug. And something like the Norovirus is so contagious that once it enters a household, it's HIGHLY likely that everyone will contract it no matter what precautions they take (short of leaving home for several days!). Infection is transmitted not just through diarrhoea/vomit, but also through saliva. You're also contagious BEFORE and LONG AFTER symptoms show - a simple kiss on the cheek could be enough to pass the virus on before you even know you have it! Because of this, with close family units, it's almost inevitable that once one person contracts the bug, everyone will get it.
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