Cleaning of smoke stain on Stone Veneer above Oven Door

Mattone Barile & Mattone Barile Grande Ovens
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Hi. I just finished a new Fireplace & Pizza Oven combination. The exterior of the Fireplace & Oven are finished with a Stone Veneer. Using the Oven the stone directly above the Oven Door is becoming discolored and or stained from the smoke escaping from the oven. What can I use to clean this area of the smoke discoloration & staining?

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Welcome to the BrickWood forum!

Congratulations on finishing your project. The soot is going to be a fact of pizza oven life, but with your veneer you will want to stay on top of it.

You can try two things:

  1. Try a very dilute solution of Muriatic acid and water, followed by a gentle scrub and a good rinse. Wear gloves. Keep the solution off your hearth! (Cover it first.)
  2. Try a solution of 1 part white vinegar to 7 parts water, use it as above. You can skip the gloves, though you might still want to wear them to keep inky wet soot off your hands.

As I say, soot just comes with the territory with wood-burning appliances. One of these should work for you. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

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+1 to placing a towel or tarp or something on the firebricks/hearth to catch any drips while you’re cleaning of the arch. This will protect your hearth and save you from cleaning the soot up twice. I found that out the hard way.

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Making a paste from baking soda and water. Put it on bricks and leave for 15 minutes then wash off.

This does a good job for me and may be a better start before using the heavy duty stuff.

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Hey Brian, good to see you here and thanks for the tip!

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Thanks Brian. I will definitely try this out. I’m getting some hardwood next week, that should help as well

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Thanks for your response. I will definitely try your two suggestions, starting with the vinegar.

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Great suggestion, thanks

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Leave it, it adds character to the oven IMO.

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That’s true! I have exposed firebrick, not veneer, and I don’t mind the soot because it shows the oven is being used. I don’t know how I’d feel about it if I had stone.

I also have a copper plaque that I intended to mount on the chimney, but I’m sure it will get sooted up pretty quickly, so I’ve held off.

But there is a lot to be said for character!

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One other trick that will help when you clean the veneer or stone. I knew that soot was going to be a factor so I sealed my stone with a sealer. I used a paver sealer. Now I clean it with vinegar solution and it cleans much easier. Over time it will get more permanent. The character of the soot on it is just fine.

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Add me to the list that think it’s much better to embrace the added character than fight the inevitable…

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I just finished cleaning the soot off my sealed brick veneer. I used a mason jar filled with water and a little Dawn dishwashing liquid. I used an old toothbrush to do the scrubbing. I hosed everything off after a couple scrubs.

It worked well, not sure if it’s because of the Dawn or the fact that the veneer was sealed. This isn’t something I plan to do often, maybe every 6 months or so, but it was easy to do.