best for removing years of nicotine stains

miaoww

Hi guys - whats best fro removing years of nicotine / smoking staining from doors, door frames and cupboards - besides / before glossing it

thriftwizard

Well, it's not the same, but I spend a fair amount of my time removing old nicotine deposits from vintage sewing machines, and I use original Swarfega. Not the stuff with granules in, which will cause scratching, but the oldfashioned green goo. Works wonders!

Memory_Girl

Sugar soap - hot water and rubber gloves with lots of cloths.

Old fashioned but the best thing for cutting through years of crud. You will be horrified at the colour of the water though.

MG

jillie1974

sugar soap and good sanding.

pigpen

Get the doors stripped.. it is usually about £10 per door but then you start afresh and no staining to leech through and you don't risk paint chipping or the doors not closing properly.

Sand or use paint stripper on the frames and immovable bits.. it takes ages but is the only way to get rid of it completely.

Ceilings/walls with that horrid yellow staining.. you will have some success with sugar soap as it will remove the sticky coating the rooms get ready to be repainted.

It was so bad in 2 rooms in my house when we moved in we painted it with aluminium paint and painted over that.. that stopped it!!

Part_Mouse

My dh says use an oil based undercoat, sand it down first though.Will prob need to undercoat twice.

ash28

A good wash (and rinse with clean water) with sugar soap should give you a surface you can paint. If the staining is really bad use an aliminium based primer....it will generally stop any bleeding through.

Emm-in-a-pickle

Another vote for sugar soap, but also have successfully used stardrops on gloss-painted bits. Whatever you use, have plenty of clean wet cloths to `rinse`, ie wipe off. We`re a smoking household, so I`ve tried all sorts of stuff over the years. Bottles of liquid sugar soap, and stardrops are cheapest & best IMHO.