How to Clean Soot off the Walls & Ceilings

Soot can form on your walls from a big disaster, such as a fire, or from something small such as a candle or a wood burning fire inside your home. A professional restorer should provide assistance, after you contact your insurance company, if you experience a major fire. In some cases, however, you can clean the soot from your walls and ceilings without professional assistance. Removing the soot by cleaning is usually cheaper than replacing the wall and ceiling materials. How you remove the soot depends mainly on the size of the damage.

Things You'll Need

• Rubber gloves
• Fan
• Plastic
• Vacuum with upholstery attachment
• Mild liquid soap
• Sponge
• Ladder
• Dry cleaning chemical sponge

Instructions

1. Slip on a pair of rubber gloves before cleaning soot of the walls and ceilings. Turn on a fan in the room where you are working to increase the ventilation; as well open up the windows.

2. Lay a piece of plastic across the floor underneath the affected walls and ceilings. This protects the flooring from soot debris.

3. Vacuum the wall and ceiling with the upholstery attachment. Place the head of the attachment close to the wall and work in rows, pulling the attachment across all areas of the soot until the debris layer is completely removed.

4. Add a few drops of a mild liquid soap to a quart-sized bucket of water, if the affected area is small. Dampen a sponge with the solution and wipe the soot away, working only on one small area at a time. Rinse with another sponge just moistened with warm water.

5. Scrub larger soot-covered areas with a dry cleaning chemical sponge. These products use no water and transfer the soot into the sponge. Start at the ceiling level first and scrub the soot stains; use a ladder, if necessary, to reach the ceiling and upper wall areas. Move onto the walls, working from the top to the bottom in overlapping sections. When one side of the sponge becomes stained, shave a layer off with a razor blade. Do not try to wring out the sponge or clean it; this ruins the chemical that is applied to the product.

Tips & Warnings

• Purchase chemical sponges from a cleaning supply company. Only use non-water-based cleaners when cleaning large amounts of soot from walls and ceilings. Water-based cleaners can cause the soot to bleed into the wall and stain it.

References

• University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service; Handling Smoke Damage After a Fire; 1998
• Good Housekeepin; Cleaning Candle Soot; Heloise
• Parish Supply: Dry Cleaning Soot Sponge