This tip comes from my reader Autumn:
I love your lets save some money posts and last night after scrubbing my kitchen floor on my hands and knees because my swiffer wet jet was out of cleaner, I decided there had to be a way to get those refill bottles open I mean who can offered an $8 refill bottle for those things?
So I googled my question “how do you get the swiffer wet jet bottle open?” and what do ya know I found a youtube video that showed me just how to do it.
You simply take a pot and fill it with 2-3 inches of water then bring water to a boil on stove, once water is to a boil stick the lid of the refill bottle down into the pot for about 10 seconds then with a towel twist the lid off, if it does not twist off you may need to hold it longer in the water once you have the lid off you can pour about a cap full of your favorite all purpose cleaning solution in the bottom of the refill bottle then fill the rest of the way with tap water, replace the lid and place back in to your wet jet.
The hubby and I tried this today and it DOES work, I was amazed. I tried it on my own without success before asking for my husbands help he said I didn’t have enough water in the pot apparently you want enough water to completely cover the white cap and a little bit of the actual bottle, also I wasn’t strong enough to untwist the cap myself I had to have his help, he also stated that when I was doing it on my own I was touching the lid/white cap to the bottom of the pot and he said that could melt it, so you would want to be careful with that.
Since this is my first time trying this I’m not sure how much money this would actually save but I would imagine it would be quite a bit over the course of a year. I have a really small kitchen so a refill bottle would last me about a month. At my local Wal-Mart the refills cost about $8 that would be a total of $96/yr if I continued to buy the refill.
I just looked at my bottle of all purpose cleaner and it has 40 fluid ounces in it that equals 80 tablespoons so I could refill my wet jet bottle 80 times(or 6 years) with just the one bottle of all purpose cleaner that probably was free or no more than $2 on sale with coupons!
Here is a link to the You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pO-AbT3GpE
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I did this and then the next time I tried to use my mop with regular swiffer cleaner I got on sale and my mop wouldn’t work at all. I changed the batteries and everything but nothing. :(
I was able to do this very easily this morning. It only took about 30 seconds in the boiling water, then I twisted and pulled. It does have a thread on it, so you do need to twist it. I refilled with the Lysol that we got for next to nothing not long ago. I’m so happy!!! Not I need to work on the automatic hand soap.
I have, and love, the Libman mop. The mop heads are washable and reusable and the bottle is refillable. When I purchased mine for $19.99 at Walmart, it came with a $5 rebate (SAVE YOUR RECEIPT…I accidently threw mine away.)
I just got this mop a few weeks ago. I tried to pry the cap off the other day and gave up. Now I’m wondering if I can find the bottle in the trash. Am I cheap enough to dig through there? Or will I just buy a new one and use this trick next time?
Also, to the poster who was talking about the soap dispenser bottles…I managed to get that off pretty easily with a butter knife. Instead of buying another one of those though, I bought a refillable motion detected soap dispenser for the upstairs bathroom.
Thank you for that!!! I recently went to the steam mop b/c I figured it was cheaper in the long run than buying all those refills! We do use swiffer at our church cleaning and this would save some money there!! Thank you Thank you!
thank you so much! I have been wondering this for a few years and that stuff is exensive! and now that my baby is doind the army crawl, i feel like i have to mop every night and i really don’t want to use the chemicals anyway. someday soon i have to get that teammop but intill then i will do this! right on for sharing this info!
Awsome idea!! I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for sharing
I was JUST thinking about how in the world I could refill my almost empty wet jet bottle this morning!!!! Perfect timing for this post! I can’t wait to try…
Awesome! Now I can use my favorite, child-friendly cleaner rather than theirs!
Awesome information. I don’t use swiffer but I will pass this along to my mom who does. I use a steam mop which I love with kids & pets because no chemicals are needed with it. It just uses water :)
Megan, me too! I love to use my Sargent Team cleaner. Amazing all the things some steam and pressure can clean.
that is great to know as the swiffer solution is not pet friendly and we do not use any of their cleaning solutions to do it being deadly for animals. We use simple green since it is non toxic and smells great! I would refill it with Simple Green!
This was SOOOOOOOOO cool thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I am so excited to try it
libman makes a refillable mop with a microfiber pad – we have one for our hardwood floors that we fill up with our bruce cleaner
http://www.libman.com/freedom-mop.aspx
I haven’t tried this method, but I have refilled the bottles after prying off the cap with a claw hammer. This technique would also work on the lysol motion activated soap dispenser bottles. I have been refilling those for a few months now without any problems.
According to my Dad, who has been “re-filling’ for years….. Turn slightly and then pull up. He said the caps do not have threads like usual caps. ;-)