Toothbrushes and oven cleaner? Not what normally springs to mind when you think about removing graffiti from your garage door.
However, when a vandal strikes with his spray can of paint, you need to be resourceful—then apply some elbow grease.
Homeowners in the city and the suburbs face the threat of graffiti with trepidation. The so‑called “taggers” don’t restrict their vandalism to high‑density urban landscapes anymore. Someone gave them a schedule for the commuter trains.
Now everyone is a possible victim.
If your garage door is the recipient of some unwanted attention from a tagger, you could hire a company to make the problem go away. Alternately, take a crack at it yourself. There are several cleaning products to try. Here is our best plan of attack to remove the graffiti.
Know your enemy
Graffiti vandals aren’t loyal to one kind of paint. They have lots of inks and sprays on hand. The goal is to choose the right cleaning product according to the age of the graffiti, the type of garage door (wood, metal, plastic‑coated, composite?) and the type of paint (enamel, exterior paint, oil‑based?). Keep in mind that spray paint can be water based or oil based. With any luck, your paint is water‑based.
Thankfully, street artists (a.k.a. the scoundrels) often buy cheap paints that are considerably easier to remove. If the taggers used a marking pen, enamel paint, or permanent ink, the graffiti is stubborn enough to make you shake your fist at the sky in frustration.
It helps enormously to use the right products in a timely fashion. Fresh graffiti is easier to remove than graffiti that’s dried and settled, so don’t waste any time.
Try a little tenderness
Is it lifting off? No? Move to a more abrasive powder cleanser and try using a Brillo pad. Again, apply gentle pressure and see if the graffiti starts to come off. Next, try that oven cleaner, letting it sit for at least 15 minutes before wiping it away gently with a damp cloth or paper towels. This will get messy, so wear gloves and have a garbage bag handy.
Begin by rummaging under the kitchen sink for common liquid cleaners. Use a soft scrubbing pad. If you have an old toothbrush, use that. Test a small patch of graffiti and see what happens.
Move up to solvents
First, the definition: solvent are liquids that dissolve chemical, including spray paint. Oxygenated solvents, like alcohols, ketones and glycol ethers, have higher solvency power than hydrocarbon solvents, such as paraffin.
Strong solvents will take off the paint under the graffiti, as well as the tag, so be careful. You can’t expect a solvent to know the difference between the graffiti and your undercoat of exterior paint on the garage door. Keeping that in mind, proceed with caution, don’t over‑saturate the stain with solvent and work in small areas to control the saturation time on any one area. Remember, wooden doors are particularly vulnerable to solvents.
Solvents to consider
- Mineral spirits (a.k.a. white spirits) – You may know it as paint thinner. Note that they’re cheap and easy to use, but doesn’t always remove more stubborn graffiti. Mineral spirits will only work on fresh paint that’s relatively easy to remove.
- Naphtha – It’s also a petroleum solvent, but considerably stronger than mineral spirits. Naphtha will dissolve hardened paint and even crayons.
- Isopropyl alcohol – Good for graffiti applied with markers. Fun fact, it also breaks down ink and shoe polish.
- Lacquer thinner, or acetone – The second‑best effective solvents against graffiti. Acetone softens and dissolves most types of paint, even the pesky spray paint on your garage door. However, acetone can soften certain types of plastic or vinyl, so it's unsuitable on certain garage doors.
- Methylene chloride – The best solvent for removing graffiti. It’s the active ingredient in professional graffiti removing products. You can buy a paint remover that contains methylene chloride at a paint store. The products need to sit on the graffiti for somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. This type of product is also used by companies specialized in removing graffiti and by city workers removing graffiti from public property, such as road signs and access tunnels.
Think of the environment
If you want a more “greener” cleanser, ask granny… or a hippy. They swear by a mixture of white vinegar and lemon juice, or white vinegar and baking soda. As a bonus, there’s less risk of damaging your door’s original paint. It’s worth a try.
When to repaint
How old is your garage door, anyway? Don’t spend time and money trying to scrub graffiti off a door that has seen better days. If a cosmetic makeover would add to the curb appeal of your home, just repaint it.
Major paint manufacturers have online visualize tools for exterior paint on their websites, so you can play with colour pairings and find the right hue that works with your front door. If HGTV taught us anything, it’s that oversized garage doors look best in lighter or neutral shades, while smaller front doors can “pop” with a deeper shade. In other words, keep the accent colours—burgundy, chocolate brown, slate—for front doors.
Before you pick up the paint brush, clean the door’s surface and bottom edge. Wash off all surface grease and spider webs before applying a coat of primer. If the primer doesn’t cover the graffiti—unlikely, but it happens—put on a second coat of primer before the colour.
If your door is from Garaga or is a door with a similar surface, then refer to our website for the instructions you’ll need to repaint it.
What about your insurance policy?
Hey, maybe your home insurance policy covers damage by vandals—even graffiti! Contact your insurance company to confirm and ask about the deductible. If the deductible is high, it may not be worth submitting a claim.
The upgrade option
Ask yourself this: was your garage door ready to be replaced anyway? This unfortunate incident could be the nudge you were waiting for to make an upgrade. If you live near Mississauga, contact us now at 905-569-9133. We provide no‑obligation quotations by email.
Another option is to come and meet us at our showroom. Use our Design Centre to pick out the style of door and look at our image gallery for instant inspiration.
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