Dear Home Ec 101:
A few years ago, I used what we believed to be a dry erase marker. Indeed, I think if I’d immediately erased it, it worked fine. But I didn’t. I left the grocery list up for a while and when I finally bought something from that list, I discovered that it was now permanent. I did try nail polish remover, which does a lovely job cleaning up the rest of the board.
Any other ideas for me? I’d love to remove this list of things I no longer care about buying! (And,
frankly, nail polish remover isn’t my favorite cleaner between the smell and the environmental issues.)
~Fuming in Farmington
Heather says:
There is a simple trick for removing permanent and non-washable marker from whiteboards. Use a good quality dry-erase marker and carefully write over the marks you wish to remove. Allow the new writing to dry and wipe clean.
Care and feeding of whiteboards:
- Never write on a wet whiteboard.
- Thoroughly erase between uses.
- Clean with a solvent* once a week, unless the board is heavily used and then more often may be recommended.
- As a last resort, try Bar Keeper’s Friend.
- After cleaning wipe with pure water and buff to dry thoroughly.
*The solvent depends on the brand of markers used. For example Expo markers would need a ketone based solvent while Expo2 requires an alcohol based cleaner.
Good luck cleaning your whiteboard!
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In our home school, The Clean Team’s Red Juice has always gotten the dry erase boards spotless. http://www.thecleanteam.com
I heard of the dry erase trick before but not of any others. I think this will work fine!
Todd
My husband has a dry erase board in his shop. He used a permanent marker (the ones you take the lid off to smell) on it. He uses heavy duty contact cleaner on it. He sprays it on there and wipe it off. It leaves traces of color, like you can see green or red but not what was written. If you use this, do it outside, as the fumes kill brain cells.