Correction; Found something BETTER than lemon juice. VINEGAR!....You can get 30% vinegar at HD...Works better than lemon juice...

I did an experiment today by just squeezing some lemon juice on 2 of the bricks that had efflorescence, and almost immediately I could see the efflorescence disappear !! I did not even brush it in or anything. So tomorrow I go to Costco and get 98 ozs of lemon juice for $6.49. That is a lot cheaper than the $50 and $60 efflorescence removers they have for sale. And most of the reviews I've read for the expensive $60 removers says they are not all that effective either,. I am so impressed and thankful that I came across your video. Thanks!!!!!

mortar is a combination of sand, cement, and lime. The staining is from the lime. Lime is a base. You can clean lime stains with any acid. Just as long as it's clear since you don't want to stain it with something else. Sprite, lemon juice, seltzer, baking soda, vinegar all work to some degree. BUY whatever is cheapest.

Seems like a good job for citric acid powder. I always keep a big bag around. You can mix it to whatever strength you want and use it anywhere you’d use lemon juice or vinegar for cleaning. A bag of a few pounds is the equivalent of dozens of jugs of vinegar or similar, but much cheaper and obviously easier to store. You can also use it for cooking - it’s the same powdery stuff you find on sour skittles and gummis!

Very interesting. I’ve always used muriatic acid because it’s only $6 a gallon and I’m usually cleaning a large area. This seems useful while working inside of a finished home, cleaning a small area. I’ll have to try it. Thanks for the video

Will those work on mortan stain?

I just tried. It didn't work for me.

Wow!!! Not surprised because lemon juice is acidic!

If that bottles not in the video, I'd say he's 100% peeing

Great tip! It’s a much safer acid wash! I can’t help but mention that you used the wrong mortar mix on your repointing though…

This actually works! Thanks so much for this tip! I was trying to find ways not to harm my flowers and bushes. Thank you so much, you’re amazing!

Thank you for this video, I redid my front stairs this week and I made a mess with the mortar, I used a gallon of lemon juice and now it looks a million times better. I agree muriatic acid can be harsh, you saved the day for $10!!!

Just tried this on June 7th and it works just great...thanks for the tip and for saving me some money.

Thanks for the great tip. I did some stucco work and ended up having the white film of concrete on my bricks. I got a gallon of lemon juice, poured it on the affected areas, brushed, swept, then washed the area. Wow. Like magic.

Really great! Like you, I hate using muratic acid bc - while it will clean the haze, it also eats into the new mortar repairs - I love that the lemon juice is natural & safe!

This totally worked. Remodeling my kitchen that had the chimney run through it but was covered in Plaster AND mortar. Just using water, brush and sponge was not working. Thanks for posting!

I have to do coping stones on a pool. Cost by cost, muriatic acid comes out cheaper. However, I'm not willing to etch the gunnite with muriatic acid before plaster. So, I'll be using lemon juice and sucking up the additional cost. Thanks for the tip; I've tried it on a small portion of coping and it definitely works.

Your tip using lemon juice really helped me out with brick mortar haze clean up on my chimney. My bricks are a very rough texture, so I need to repeat the lemon juice method about 3 times, with wire brushing in between, but it works well. I didn't want to do the acid method. Thanks again.

Your tips are terrific! Seriously. You saved so much time!

Excellent. Going to try it out on my sidewalk I repaired with new brick. Thanks for the tip!