ammonia reactivity

[GigaBuist]

Just think of how powerful you'd become if you submerged yourself completely in it for an hour or two....  

Michael Phelps is in that stuff for like 8 hours a day.  And he's practically super human now!

[230RN]

After installing an alternator on my car once, I got some DHMO on my hands and it ate the car grease right off!

Fortunately, I had some of those red shop rags handy and wiped it off immediately!

Close call!

Terry, 230RN

[Scout26]

Years and years ago I had a bunch of empty beer bottles in my sink attempting to get labels off them all so I could bottle up some home brew.

And like an idiot I was adding in random cleaners trying to get the crap off.  And then I started coughing.  Bad.

I hit the deck and stared reading labels cursing myself for not remembering enough of high school chem to figure out what I'd just done.  Figured it out later after I opened up all the windows.

Bleach + toilet bowl cleaner == Chlorine gas.

Mrs. Scout (an RN, who had to take several Chemistry classes in college).  Also did that when we first moved into our house.  She was attempting to clean the toilets and mixed Bowl Cleaner and Bleach.......  Her response was that she got a low 'C' in Inorganic Chemistry......

Toilets did get nice and clean.....

[Matthew Carberry]

The sole act of heroism (aside from not strangling me in my sleep, though that may fall more under saintly patience and restraint) that I am aware of in my mother's life was her (substitute teacher at the time) going into a classroom to drag out an unconscious cleaning lady who had been overcome by fumes from mixing cleaners.

Classic "everyone else stood there while one person acted" situation.

[sanglant]

Toilets did get nice and clean.....

yep, nothing cleans like bleach and ammonia. just remember the gas mask.

[Firethorn]

yep, nothing cleans like bleach and ammonia. just remember the gas mask.

Standard gas masks won't work; you'll need SCBA

[eyebrows]

Ammonia will react violently with nostrils.

Once upon a time we were on summer break from school and a couple of us got a job cleaning up old houses, mostly throwing away junk. One day a guy named.. well lets just call him stupid, stupid finds this big jug that is very clearly marked "Ammonia". He goes "Whats this stuff?". Me and my other buddy looked at each other and he smiled and I said to stupid "I dunno why don't you smell it".
Now we knew this kid and didn't expect him to be this dense and not know what ammonia is. We were like 14-15 at the time - How can you be 15 and not know about ammonia?? He took the cap off that jug, put his nose right over it and inhaled like he was smelling flowers.
I'm laughing right now writing this, his reaction was over the top. Face I'll never forget, a mix of shock, WTF and comical pain. He dropped the bottle, which of course exploded, and took off like a raging bull complete with bellowing. In a straight line, straight into the wall. He bounced off the wall and rolled around and around trying to clear his nostrils. The bellowing noises were freaking awesome.
  The things we do as kids.

[MechAg94]

Standard gas masks won't work; you'll need SCBA

You probably could find a filter mask that would take out the right chemical, but the problem is you wouldn't know when the filters were spent before breathing the stuff.  SCBA is definitely better.  Best would be air line supplied respirator with a 12 pack of cylinders.

We use chemical filters for removing ammonia at work, but that is just for off loading ammonia from a truck into our tank.  The masks are just for potential exposure and some leakage.  Our procedure says to use new filters every time. 

Another consideration, ammonia is flammable within a fairly narrow concentration range in air.