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If you're planning some decorations for your fireplace, or if you just want to get rid of the unsightly build up of soot, you are
probably wondering how to clean your fireplace without making a mess. Cleaning your fireplace may look like a forbidding job, but if you take it step-by-step you'll neither swear nor sweat. This
tested method has worked on fireplaces up to 100 years old.
Items You'll Need from the Hardware Store:
Plastic goggles for eye protection
A stiff nylon scrub brush
Rubber gloves
A cheap plastic drop cloth
A small carton of TSP (Tri-Sodium Phosphate)
or phosphate-free TSP Substitute
A plastic bucket
Removing Soot
You can use latex doctor's gloves to keep your hands clean, but be very careful when scrubbing that you don't blister your hands, which will be moist
and soft inside the gloves.
Put down a cheap plastic drop cloth to kneel on. It's a good idea to have a large trash can, lined with 2 trash bags, standing by.
Remove your andirons and grate and take them outdoors. Remove the excess soot with your wire brush and set them aside. (If your andirons are
brass, you can polish them with a brass polish such Brasso, if you like.)
Making sure no hot coals remain, now remove the accumulated loose ashes with your fireplace shovel, put them in the trash can, and sweep up the loose
dust. A Cricket Ash Vac is ideal for this purpose.
Line the fireplace with newspapers, overlapping the edge of your drop cloth. Arrange you newspapers so that they "climb" the fireplace walls by
3-4 inches, so that all the soot will land on the newspapers.
Use you wire brush and its scraper to loosen soot from the walls of the fireplace, starting at the top. As soot builds up, you can 'package' the
soot in a couple layers of newspapers and put each package in the trash can.
Deep Cleaning the Fireplace Walls
Put down several layers of new newspaper.
Don your rubber (not latex doctors' gloves) and goggles. (Did I say put on old clothes? I should have!)
Some cautions: TSP and TSP Substitute are very caustic; either will burn skin or eyes; either will de-gloss enamel
painted surfaces. Read and follow instructions on the label.
Mix 6 tbsp of TSP or TSP Substitute and 1 cup of chlorine bleach with one gallon of warm (NOT
hot) water. Making this mixture in a gallon bucket will help you avoid drips and splashes.
Set the bucket in the fireplace. Dip your wire brush and scrub the fireplace walls, starting at the top. Use plenty of TSP solution and scrub
until the walls are clean. On older fireplaces, there will probably be areas that remain stained black even though they are clean. Gather up the wet newspapers and put them in the trash can.
Give the fireplace floor the same treatment. Wipe down the walls and floor with clean water and rags or paper towels.
When the fireplace has dried, put back your andirons and grate, or give your fireplace a "make-over" with a fireplace candelabra.
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