As fireplaces become a highly used feature of your home to heat the property during the cold days and nights, it’s often found that many homeowners are left neglecting their fireplace surround with little to no experience in maintaining a healthy fire and fireplace.
During this heavy time of year, this neglect in cleaning your fireplace can result in any further issues such as poor ventilation, external fires and combustion.
If you are host to a stunning log-burning stove, your cleanliness is a key priority.
As we have covered in an array of other articles, poor maintenance can actually be far more time consuming and a whole lot more hassle than some simple cleaning procedures.
This guide is some of the best ways to clean a brick fireplace ensuring a spotless finish and perfectly functioning fire.
- Ensure your fireplace is completely cold, no warmth should be present when starting your cleaning process as this can cause mini fires during the phase.
- Clear any cold ash and soot away from the fireplace surround, clearing the majority of the fine mess. You can complete this by using a hoover and going in between each crevice.
- Ensuring a delicate clean is essential on a brick fireplace, using a light solution of dish soap and warm water, using a soft sponge, wipe over the surface of the bricks to collectively clean the piece.
- On newer brick fireplaces, if required, gently use a nylon brush and scrape away any extra dirt. Although this should be avoided if possible to prevent any further destruction.
- After a scrub, it’s key to revisit the 3rd step, and gently clean the bricks to remove any contamination and extra dust.
- To remove any spot stains, apply a paste of 6 parts dish soap 1 part baking soda, apply, scrub and quickly wash off to prevent over-cleaning.
The key factor to cleaning your brick fireplace is by taking your time and ensuring a gentle execution.
To see some incredible fireplaces including state of the art brick displays, take a look at a range of over 50+ live fireplaces in our Manchester based showroom.
