Home Cleaning

How to Wash Soot at a Flagstone Fireplace

On cold nights, a flagstone fireplace infuses your home with warmth and rustic charm. The flickering flames relax and soothe you, but as soon as they’ve burned out, you are stuck cleaning the sooty mess left behind. If you wet the soot with water, it can soak into the stone, leaving a nasty mark that is almost impossible to fully eliminate. By cleaning up the ash and soot correctly, though, your fireplace will have a like-new look for several years.

Allow ashes to cool for at least four days after you’ve used the fireplace to avoid burning yourself on hot ash.

Spread moist coffee grounds or tea leaves above the ash piles. This keeps dust at bay and helps avoid a stale odor.

Subscribe to the ash piles using a fireplace scoop, then dump them in a bucket or aged grass. Eliminate the ash in an outdoor trash can. Suck up any remaining ash using a wet-dry store vacuum.

Dab the soot stains with a dry soot-removal sponge, which can be found at hardware and home improvement stores. Press down on the stone to absorb the soot. Keep until the soot is gone.

Mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of trisodium phosphate with 1 gallon of hot water. Wet a fabric or stiff brush with the mix, subsequently wash the stone until all discoloration fades.

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