Have you ever wondered how to clean drywall dust off painted walls?
Whenever you need to do any type of drywall work in your home, there is a very good chance that drywall dust will get onto your painted walls.
When this happens, you must make sure and clean it up as quickly as possible.
But how are you supposed to do that?
Here is everything that you need to know about how to clean drywall dust off painted walls.
Table of Contents
How to Clean Drywall Dust Off Painted Walls
To get drywall dust off your painted walls, you will need to wipe them down with a damp cloth. The damp cloth will easily be able to pick up all of the dust that has been leftover from your drywall work.
Now you may think that the drywall dust will turn into some type of mud or paste as soon as the damp cloth comes in contact with it, but you will be surprised to discover that this is not going to be the case at all.
When you try to clean up drywall dust with too much water, however, you can potentially have something that is referred to as ‘the joint compound that produced the dust.’
However, when you do perform the task of wiping down your painted wall with a damp (not wet) cloth correctly, you should have no problems at all.
Just keep in mind that when you go to remove the drywall dust from the surface of your painted wall, you will need to use water sparingly.
This is because drywall actually soaks up water and then split as it starts to dry out.
With that being said, instead of using a paper towel or something like that, be sure that you are only using a microfiber cloth when it comes to the actual wiping of the drywall.
This will ensure that you can absorb the drywall dust and that your fabric will push any excess off of the wall.
The best way to remove drywall dust from your walls is to prevent it from getting there in the first place.
Here is how you can remove drywall dust and keep your home as clean as possible in the process.
Contain the Drywall Dust
The very first thing that you should do when you know that you are working with your home’s drywall is to remove all furniture as far away as possible.
If you have some furniture or other items that you just cannot move, try to cover them in some type of protective plastic.
This will help to protect them from any potential dust and make clean up much more manageable.
You may even want to cover up any air vents to prevent the drywall dust from getting into your ventilation system and spreading to the rest of the house.
And if there are any doors or windows, be sure to cover them up as well.
If you don’t, there is a very good chance that a draft or outside air will be able to spread the drywall dust into the rest of your home.
Cleaning Drywall from Furniture
If you have correctly prepped the room where the drywall work was being done, you should not have very much drywall to clean other than your walls (which was explained previously).
With that being said, if there is drywall in different rooms or on your furniture, the chances are that it made its way there from your clothes or just simply floated there.
While you may think that a shop vac will do short work, you are not necessarily right.
You see, drywall dust is extremely fine.
This means that if you are going to vacuum it up, you must make sure that your vacuum has a heavy-duty HEPA filter.
This will be the most effective way that you can clean any drywall dust off of your furniture.
The next best way is to take the ‘infected’ furniture outside and set some fans on it.
While the fan is blowing on your furniture, whack it with a broom or stick (yes, like something you have seen in a movie before).
This will ensure that all of the drywall dust particles are lifted out of that particular piece of furniture.
Further reading: How to clean drywall dust off the furniture.
Cleaning Drywall from Carpet
As previously mentioned, drywall dust is going to be very fine.
This means that a regular vacuum cleaner will not get all of the dust from your carpet or wood floors.
When you leave drywall dust in your carpet, it can and will be shuffled around into the air, eventually finding its way into your lungs. This is bad.
To ensure that this does not happen, you must make sure that you use a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner to get the dust out of your carpets.
The only other practical option for this is to have a professional carpet cleaning company come out and clean all of the carpets that have been exposed to the drywall dust.
If you go this route, it will only be more expensive and a much bigger headache for you.
Conclusion
If you are doing or having any type of drywall work done in your home, there is a very high probability that drywall dust will get onto your painted walls.
If this happens, the best thing you can do to remove it safely is to take a damp microfiber cloth and gently wipe it until you have a clean wall.
When you can do this, you will be preventing that very same drywall dust from spreading to your furniture, your floor or carpet, and even more importantly, the rest of your home.
While it may not sound like that big of a deal, drywall dust has the potential to be very dangerous to your health.
When you can prevent and clean it from happening in the first place, you will be ensuring that you and your family are safe from any type of potential adverse effects.