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A quick guide to cleaning your radiators

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21-06-2021

For your household, one of those areas may be your radiators, which absolutely need to be included in your weekly cleaning routine. Radiators, after all, can attract a lot of dust and dirt, and a lack of cleanliness can even impact on the efficiency of your home’s heating.

But how, exactly, do you clean radiators? Here are some handy tips from our Barnes, Surbiton and Wembley plumbers and heating engineers.

First, turn off the heating

This might sound like obvious advice to give, but it’s worth us being clear about why this stage is so important.

By turning the heating off in your London or South East property and giving the radiators a few hours to cool down, you will – of course – ensure you don’t burn yourself. It will also, however, help make sure the convection currents created by your radiators don’t draw any further dust into the radiators during cleaning.

Vacuum dust from the radiators

This is the first meaningful stage of the radiator cleaning phase itself. It will necessitate you making use of your hoover’s extendable hose attachment, if it has one.

The emphasis here will be on vacuuming as much dust as possible from the areas in and around your radiators. Don’t overlook the areas underneath your radiators and where they meet the wall.

Clean out dirt inside the radiators

You’re likely to have found the previous stage a tricky one when it comes to getting to those awkward internal parts of your radiators – so, now’s the time to zoom in on them.

Place a towel underneath the radiator to catch any dirt, and use a specialist radiator cleaning brush to push out whatever remaining dirt the vacuum couldn’t reach. If you don’t have a radiator brush, you can create a makeshift one by wrapping a microfiber cloth around a piece of wood.

Rinse the outsides of the radiators

Presuming the insides of your radiators are now clean, the next stage focuses on the external surfaces. It begins with filling a bucket with warm water, into which washing-up liquid is mixed until it’s sufficiently foamy.

Then, you’ll be able to wipe down the outsides of your radiators with a soft sponge – and it does need to be soft, as using anything overly abrasive risks scratching your radiator surfaces. When you dunk your sponge, you should make sure you wring out excess water until it is merely damp.

Give the surrounding areas a little TLC

If you’ve followed the aforementioned steps thoroughly, your radiators should now be sparkling clean. But what about the areas surrounding them?

These parts, too, can accumulate dirt and dust, which may be left stuck to the wall as a result of the radiators’ heat. If this is the case in your South East or London home, you can just use the same sponge and soapy water mentioned above to tackle the walls and skirting boards, while being careful not to damage any paintwork.

There you go – a fairly simple rundown of what you need to do to clean your residential property’s radiators from top to bottom.

Remember that our Leatherhead, Tadworth and Wembley plumbers and heating engineers are available to help with all manner of aspects of your boiler and central heating system, ranging from installation and servicing to repair; simply get in touch now for free advice and a competitive quote.

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