How to Clean a Brick Fireplace like a Pro
Brick fireplaces are guaranteed to lend an even cosier atmosphere to any home but unfortunately, like most things in life, there is also a small downside to having a fireplace installed in your home. There will come a day when you will have to roll up your sleeves and face your sooty fireplace. And yes, cleaning the mess isn’t going to be pleasant or easy. In fact, cleaning sooty bricks might require a good amount of elbow grease. Here’s the good news, though — there are three effective ways to clean your brick fireplace like a real pro. Read on, to find out how it’s done!
Cleaning with Liquid Dish Soap and Abrasives
Those, who opt for this approach will need rubber gloves, a piece of cloth, regular liquid dish soap, and a brush with stiff bristles to scrub off the soot more effectively. Make sure you stack up on some table salt because it will function as your abrasive. The idea is to prepare a paste to clean the brick with. For the purpose, you should combine one ounce of liquid dish soap with the same amount of salt, and add just enough water to create a creamy paste.
Use the piece of cloth to rub the paste into the brick and wait for a sufficient amount of time so that the mixture dries out completely. Finally, scrub off the dry paste using your stiff-bristled brush — the soot will come off along with the paste.
Cleaning with Vinegar
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The thing about vinegar is that you can use it to clean almost everything around your house and your brick fireplace is hardly an exception. But why is it effective? Being a mild acid, white vinegar will help you remove soot and smoke residue from the brick, but it can also be successfully used when cleaning the fireplace’s glass doors, if there are any.
You will need undiluted white vinegar (which is stronger) to pour onto the brick. After a while you can scrub the grime, soot and vinegar, using your hard-bristled brush. You should rinse the bricks with a sufficient amount of water, and then, wipe the area clean using an old towel.
Cleaning with Ammonia and Naphtha
We know what you’re thinking — the odour of ammonia is anything but pleasant. The pungent smell might be a slight disadvantage to using this method, but given the fact how effective it is, you might consider trying it. Honestly, this method provided by FirstClassCleaner might the best method to help you win the battle with soot.
This is how it’s done. You grate a bar of naphtha soap into a pot filled with water and bring to a boil to allow the soap to melt. Once the soap has melted completely, take the pot off the hob, and add a large cup of ammonia to the mix. Then, add about a pound of pumice and stir again until everything mixes well.
Apply your ammonia and naphtha mixture on the sooty bricks and allow it sit for a minimum of one hour. Once the time is up, you can scrub it off with the brush and rinse with water. The soot will be gone, but you might have to re-clean the fireplace from the pumice, using a suitable detergent.
Let’s face it — fire and smoke are irrevocably bound together, so it’s impossible to avoid soot when having a fireplace, brick or not. If you allow for the accumulation of too much soot, you will have to double and even triple the efforts and time, required for the effective clean of your fireplace. Choose a method that works for you and clean your brick fireplace as soon as you notice soot is starting to build up.
