If you want to ensure that your storefront remains as attractive as possible, it's important to maintain your brick exterior. While certain types of damage and degradation can only be addressed by a commercial cleaning service like Best Choice Pressure Cleaning and Landscaping, problems such as grease and efflorescence can be solved on your own initiative. To help you maintain your brick exterior, pay attention to these two tips.
Wipe Away Grease Spots With Soap Before They Harden
Especially if there's a restaurant nearby, grease spots pose a very significant risk to your storefront's appearance. However, this doesn't mean that you need to automatically hire a contractor to deal with a small amount of grease buildup.
Small grease spots that haven't had an opportunity to harden can be cleaned up with a vigorous application of soap and water relatively easily. There's no need to get an especially powerful form of soap either; even dishwasher soap together with a thick towel should be perfectly adequate for cleaning your bricks.
Once you're done cleaning up the grease spots on your storefront, take care to dry your bricks with a fresh towel as thoroughly as possible. Even though bricks can stand quite a lot of rainfall before losing their natural color, there's no reason to expose them to excess water any longer than is necessary.
Consider Applying A Hydrophobic Sealant To Your Bricks
Water itself isn't particularly damaging to your bricks. In fact, the twin dangers of efflorescence and color dampening are both caused by sunlight.
Efflorescence, a chemical process caused by the moisture in your bricks evaporating, has a tendency to leave unattractive white stains that are difficult to remove without specialized equipment. The severity and frequency of these stains depends on your local climate. In general, cold and frigid weather makes your bricks more likely to develop stains.
To fight both efflorescence and color dampening, preventative measures are by far the most effective. If you have reason to believe that your bricks are particularly susceptible to stain formation, consider buying a hydrophobic sealant at your local hardware store. For very cold climates, the cost of the sealant and the effort it'll take to apply will be well worth it.
Unless you're extremely busy, don't wait to act until damage to your storefront is too serious to manage yourself. A few well-timed preventative measures will save you both a lot of stress and a lot of money down the road.
Share17 February 2015
My name is Debbie Greenberg. I’m a single woman who owns her home, and like most homeowners I dread home repairs. I’m not very handy with do-it-yourself projects around the house. I can do a few minor repairs when necessary, but for the most part I have to call in a professional. Last year I had a leak in my roof. When it rained, water would leak into my kitchen. What appeared to be a simple fix turned out to be anything but simple. It took over four months to finally identify the problem, and double the money I was initially quoted to fix it. The problem ended up being that the flat part of my roof didn't have shingles, but a sheeting material. I learned a bit about home roofs along the way, and that is what I want to share with you.
