How do I clean the fake coals in my fire?

[TitchyWitch]

Title says it all really, they are filthy but also seem really fragile. How should I clean them??

Have no idea how you can clean them. You can buy new sets quite cheaply on ebay though if that's any help?

do you never get your fire and boiler serviced?

The guy who does my service cleans it all. Bit of blowing and sucking mainly as far as i can tell

Attach a piece of nylon tight over the nozzle of the hoover (an elastic band is ideal) and suck gently to remove the dust.

wipe with a damp cloth?

Spray paint them black, good as new

I know it seems a bit bizarre - but I too have wondered how to do this. Problem is you get the hoover on them and it just sucks them up. Our neighbours had a load of building work and it caused no end of rubbish to come down our chimney and leave the false coals looking rather dusty!!

When I had my fire with fake coal I used to wipe them with a damp cloth. I also had a little pot of paint that came with the fire that you could use to touch up the coals.
I know have chavvy modern pebbles.

I just take them off one by one and put the nozzle of the vacuum over them. I then also vacuum in the fire bit where loads of soot/whatever seems to gather. Then just put the coals back and it's like new!

Ooh thank you, lots of ideas. Although now I have no excuse not to do something about them. Actually, buying a new set sounds the most appealing.

I had one of those fake coal gas fires and I used to hoover all the 'sooty' bits in between and the gas engineer told me off when he came to service it. Apparently you need a layer of soot/insulation between coals and floor. He said hoovering was really dangerous!

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you may just be better off buying some new ones off eBay or something as they are really cheap. If you really want to clean them yourself then i would try this coal and fireplace cleaner.