Washing Brick or Stone Around Fireplaces or Wood Stoves

I have lived in my home for 20 years now. Over the years, I have many times washed the wood stove parts, pipes and washed the brick under the stove. 


I vacuum the bricks and then take a mop or a scrub brush and wash the bricks below the stove to get the dust, ash and soot off of them. 

The other day, I had some company visiting and I was sitting across from the wood stove and noticed that the bricks were due for another washing. 
 
I vacuumed them off and got the mop out to begin. I like using a mop head that has some scrubbers on it so that it will scrub the bricks and not just "wet" them.
 
As I was washing the bricks below the stove, I thought about how I had never washed the bricks on the back and there had to be dust and soot on them after 20 years. 
 
I started using the mop to wash the bricks on the sides and wall. It actually worked really well. I had to rinse the mop quite often and I didn't have too much water on the mop. 
 
I didn't want the mop to drip on the carpet so I wrung it out several times leaving the mop wet but not dripping. 

You can see how much brighter the bricks look after they were washed and dried than before I washed it.  

I also washed the sides of the wood stove and the pipes using the mop. 

I clean out the inside of the stove often and perhaps I will post about how I do that. I am probably a bit more OCD about cleaning out the inside of the stove more than most but I think it helps the burn when the stove is cleaner. 

As you can see, the mop picked up the dirt really well and it was a quick way to get the bricks clean and save time cleaning.