​Spring and it’s time for the annual outdoor clean-up. Look at those ugly white stains on your brickwork. They’re left by soluable salts that have leached to the surface of masonry or mortar. Use a stiff brush on them then saturate the masonry with water. Most will go away.

For the stubborn ones, use a 1-to-10 solution of muriatic acid and water, and then rinse. Best solution, or course, is to find the leak that caused the moisture and stop it.

​Other stubborn spots in the yard can be easily cleaned up too. If the stain is oil, use emulsifying agent for brick, automotive degreaser on concrete block. To clean up paint surfaces, 2 lbs. TSP to 1 gal. water. Iron stains yield to a mixture of 1 lb. oxalic acid crystals, 1 gal. water, and ½ lbs. ammonium bifluoride.