Glass Fireplace Screen

Cleaning Your Glass Fireplace Screen

It is important to have a fireplace screen, both for safety and aesthetic reasons. They can keep the fire contained so sparks and ashes don't start fires in your home and kids and pets can't touch the fire, and they can make the fireplace look even nicer and more in fitting with your other decor. However, your glass fireplace screen will eventually start to get dirty and stop looking its best. This means that it is time to figure out how to clean it so you can get it nice and sparkling clean again.

Some types of fireplaces leave your glass fireplace screen less dirty than others. If your fireplace has left a lot of soot built up on yours, your best bet might be to start out with a razor blade. You need to have one of the flat razor blades and not a knife because you want to have it at just a very slight angle so you can scrape off the soot without scratching the glass. You will want to work from one corner outward until you have scraped as much of the built up soot off as possible.

If your glass fireplace screen is not too dirty, or you have a bit of soot still present after scraping off the majority of it, you can try many of the commercial cleaners that are available for fireplace screens or glass. In some cases it might be easiest just to take it off and soak it in a cleaning solution. You can even use a natural cleaner like Simple Green. Whatever you do though, you don't want to use scratchy cleansing or Brillo type pads or abrasive cleansers since these can scratch the glass and you want to avoid that. A soft bristle brush or a toothbrush is a good alternative.

Some people have mentioned that you can use wet newspaper dipped in ashes, or a mix of a small amount of ammonia and water in order to clean up a light buildup of soot from your glass fireplace screen. You can try a few of the options mentioned above and see which one works best for you. It might be easiest to clean your screen often so that the soot doesn't get too built up and caked on.