Effectively Cleaning Your Home’s Light Fixtures

Light serves as a welcoming feature for your home – whether it be natural light entering from windows and skylights or from in-home light which emanates from lamps, chandeliers, pendant lights, or recessed lighting. Like the rest of your home your in-home lighting needs regular cleaning as well as periodic deep cleaning. Regular cleaning only requires dusting and wiping regularly and comes easily after you have effectively deep cleaned your light fixtures. Today, the Signature Maids offer these tips on thoroughly cleaning your homes lights – from lamps to ceiling mounted lights, chandeliers to pendants, recessed lighting to wall sconces, accent to track lighting.

The Challenges of Light Fixtures

Light fixtures while softening and spreading welcoming light throughout your home also presents challenges. They do illuminate your spaces in aesthetically pleasing ways, but they are also some of the world’s best magnets, attracting dust, dirt, cobwebs, and bugs with ease. Once dirty, these once beautiful and functional lights, don’t function as well as the amount of light produced is decreased as is the light bulbs’ lifespan.

The Hazards of Cleaning Your Home’s Light Fixtures

You may not have considered that cleaning your home’s light fixtures can come with hazards, but it is true. Consider this, light bulbs are hot when the are on, which means you could get burned if you don’t allow the bulbs to cool off before you begin cleaning the light fixtures. You should also note that exposing hot light bulbs to colder cleaning solutions may cause your bulbs to shatter.

Next, light fixtures, in most instances, use electricity, which means you should separate the parts which need cleaning from the electrical parts before you clean them. If you must clean the light fixtures in place, use a dry dusting tool or a damp cloth for wiping. When cleaning your light fixtures, there should be no water dripping from your cloth and no spray cleaners which can invade the electrical parts and cause damage to your light fixtures or worse increase the risk of electrocution.

Lastly, cleaning your light fixtures often means you need a ladder, particularly for those fixtures mounted from the ceiling. Most ceiling mounted fixtures need to be taken down twice a year to be cleaned, which means you have to balance on the ladder while removing the light fixture from its perch. Following safety guidelines for the use of your ladder and having someone assist you can help keep you safe.

Cleaning Your Light Fixtures

You’ll want to clean your light fixtures during the day, when the natural light entering your home can help you see. For the cleaning process gather several clean cloths,  your favorite cleaner, a feather duster, and microfiber clothes.

For most light fixtures, you can begin with your feather duster and work your way from top to bottom removing any loose dust.  If you are unable to remove the fixture from the electricity, apply your cleaner to your cloth and wipe away the dirt and grime which remain. When removing the fixture from the electricity, you can spray and wipe, cleaning sections at a time as needed. Once cleaned, use your microfiber cloth to buff the metal, glass, or other shiny parts. Remember, if you cleaned your fixture in place to vacuum the floor beneath it when you are done.

Glass Ceiling Mounted Fixtures require a bit more attention, because you will need to unscrew it from the ceiling and take it down for a deep clean. Once removed, you should empty bugs, dust, and dirt from inside into the trash and then dust the piece with your duster or microfiber cloth. In most cases, these fixtures can then be washed in warm water and your favorite dish detergent, then dried and buffed.

Call on Signature Maids to Help

Should you need assistance, the Signature Maids are always ready to help with your regular weekly cleaning and deep cleaning needs, all you need to do is call!