Effervescent about removing efflorescence

Efflorescence may sound like some pop band (think "Evanescence"), but it is not (although it may be just as vulgar).

I recently noticed some unsightly white deposits on the black brick and black mortar of my chimney and a decorative wall at the front of my house:

At first, I thought it was frost. But then I noticed it under all different temperature conditions. A quick Google search indicated it was efflorescence -- a type of mineral deposit that forms on bricks and mortar. My search results also revealed that vinegar is an effective efflorescence cleaner.

Scrubbing the brick wall at the front of my house was easy enough. But the deposits near the top of my chimney posed more of a challenge.

At first, I thought I would attach my scrub brush to my 23' extension pole, dip it in a bucket of vinegar, and get at the chimney that way. But the affected area on the chimney was just beyond the extension pole's reach. I had to come up with another solution.

Out came the Eco Flow water transfer pump that I bought immediately after my basement flooded. It was time to put it to use for my original intended purpose of having the pump boost the water pressure from my garden hose:

I hooked up the pump to my garden hose and then brought out my hose nozzle with a built in soap dispenser:

I filled the soap dispenser with vinegar and then proceeded to spray the affected area on my chimney.

The solution worked remarkably well. With just one sweep of the vinegar and water blast, the efflorescence was gone:

This is the "after" picture. I was so excited about using my new water transfer pump that I forgot to take a "before" picture, but the efflorescence was quite unsightly.

One thing that I always hate about hosing down my house is the overspray that gets on the windows and the water stains that form on the glass. But the upshot here was that vinegar is also a very effective glass cleaner. So after wiping off the vinegar/water overspray with the window cleaning tool that I created, I ended up with sparkling clean windows around the chimney:

It's also worth mentioning that I have an 1,850 psi electric pressure washer. However, I didn't drag the pressure washer out for this project for two important reasons:

(1) The pressure washer does not have a sufficient distance reach. While it produces a powerful blast at close range, the jet of water simply does not extend as far as the water from my garden hose and nozzle and therefore would not have reached the top of my chimney.

(2) The pressure washer is a bit unwieldy to lug around the perimeter of the house and would've required a separate extension cord to plug in. By contrast, my lightweight compact Rapid Flo garden hose is a breeze to carry around and wind/unwind. When connected to my water transfer pump for extra pressure, it works better in some ways than my pressure washer does.

In the long term, I think my cleaning job will be evanescent, as I'm sure the efflorescence will form again. But fortunately I have developed a rather effortless way to address the issue. And for that, I am effervescent.