Soot Removal From Glass

Following a fire the soot damage throughout the house might be extensive and there are specialist cleaning methods required depending on the surface that the soot has damaged. The following products and tips should give you the basics required to perform an extensive soot removal from glass surfaces. This soot removal is one of the more pressing tasks required when starting a fire damage clean up operation.

Soot is made up of microscopic particles of carbon and will find its way into the smallest of cracks and fissures in the surface. Glass is one of the few surfaces that you should attempt to clean it yourself.

There is more than a fair share of glass throughout any home and soot will cling stubbornly to whatever has been exposed during the fire. The good news is that there are quite a few products that have been specially developed to shift soot and many of them are available for people who own fireplaces. They can be found from any fireplace or barbecue retailer.

Some of the products that are available to clean soot from glass surfaces include: Anti-Creo-Soot, Speedy-White Multi Purpose Cleaner, White-Off Glass Cleaner, Heatsafe Glass Cleaner.

These products are all made to clean the soot off of fireplace glass surfaces and they work by attacking the fine soot particles. Most of the spray-on cleaners can be applied directly to the soot and then left to work for the next 10 to 15 minutes. Once the spray has been allowed to work its way into the soot particles it can be washed off.

Another cheaper alternative that can work effectively is to take some sheets of newspaper, wet them and then dip the paper in ashes and scrub using the screwed up paper as a rag.

Where soot damage should not be touched when it lies on other surfaces it can be cleaned with a multi purpose cleaner without the risk of creating further damage. Once the cleaner has done its work the residue must be cleaned off completely. These types of cleaners are appropriate for cleaning cold surfaces. When the surface heats up again the soot stains may become apparent again if they haven’t been properly rinsed off.

The build up of creosote on glass surfaces may require multiple applications of a cleaning product to completely rid the glass of the stain. Repeated treatments will eventually break through the soot crust.

You don’t always have to clean soot using a liquid cleaner and a rag. If the soot is thick and difficult to move it may be necessary to take a razor blade and use it to scrape the soot off the glass. As long as the blade is kept at a flat angle to the glass you will avoid scratching the surface. You may not be able to remove the entire soot coating, but it will remove the larger proportion of soot and the rest can be cleaned off with another method such as regular soap and water or one of the soot removal cleaners mentioned above.