How to Wash Grease From a Kitchen Ceiling

Your cleaning routine already includes cleaning the grease off kitchen appliances, counters and the walls around your stove, but grease builds up on ceilings, too, and requires removal. Ceilings frequently are painted with flat paint, that covers imperfections well but requires quite gentle scrubbing, and might reveal stains and water marks over glossier paints. Clean grease from your kitchen ceiling as soon as possible to prevent stains or damage from heavier scrubbing, but don’t pull a whistle and ladder just yet.

Cover your floors with a tarp or trash bags under the area you are cleaning to protect it from the inevitable dripping which comes from cleaning overhead.

Fill a bucket using a mixture of 2 tablespoons of vinegar per 1 gallon of hot water. Vinegar is a natural degreaser, but adding more vinegar into the water solution can damage flat paint.

Add a squirt of dishwashing soap — the type you use for hand washing your dishes, not in the fridge. Most dish soap is formulated to remove grease from dishes, so that it adds extra cleaning power to your ceiling degreasing solution and is gentle enough not to ruin your paint.

Dip the sponge mop into the cleaning mix. Squeeze out excess water.

Lift the mop overhead and gently press onto the ceiling as you move the mop back and forth over the oily area. If you have very high or vaulted ceilings, then you’ll require a ladder to reach the ceiling, in spite of a long mop handle.

Dip the mop into the bucket to remove grease in the mop and also to reload the cleaning option often. Squeeze out excess water each time.

Work in small sections, removing as much grease as possible from every section before continuing.

Fill a bucket with clean hot water once you are finished cleaning the ceiling.

Dip the mop into the clean hot water to rinse, then squeeze out excess water.

Press the clean damp mop onto the ceiling and move it back and forth to eliminate vinegar or soap residue from the ceiling. Repeat until the ceiling is only moist and no soap residue remains.

See related