Will Vinegar Damage Concrete? Cleaning concrete with vinegar will not damage it! However, saturating concrete for an extended period will damage the cement that binds concrete together. Over time, vinegar erodes the concrete itself, so be careful.
Cleaning concrete with vinegar or baking soda is a good option if you are looking for a natural cleaner. While cleaning concrete with bleach or detergent can be effective, it can also be toxic to plants.
White vinegar and a little scrubbing with a brush is a very effective, eco-friendly way to remove rust stains from concrete—even those that are decades old. Pour the white vinegar directly onto the stain, allow the liquid to penetrate the area for 20 minutes, and scrub with a stiff-bristled brush.
Etching – Vinegar's ability to dissolve CaCO3 will dull your marble, travertine, concrete and terrazzo surfaces. It may “clean” the surface but it is also dissolving pits into the finish and effectively dulling it.
Vinegar is a great option to remove cement stains. Vinegar is acidic and will dissolve concrete and cement stains effectively.
You can fill a spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of vinegar and water, adding a few drops of liquid dish soap. Spray this solution directly onto the concrete, letting it rest for around half an hour. If you leave it on too long, the vinegar can eat through concrete parts.
Will Vinegar Damage Pavers? Yes, vinegar is NEVER safe to use on pavers. It can cause a lot of damage, and you may have to replace a lot of the pavers if you try this. I know that vinegar is often used for household cleaning projects, but when it comes to your patio, it's a big no!
The safest places to use vinegar for weeds are in between concrete seams in sidewalks, mulch or gravel paths, and driveways. It's usually easy to spray the vinegar in these areas without getting it on other plants.
Never use vinegar on any kind of paver, brick, flagstone or concrete; it WILL damage the surface. Same for salt.
Baking Soda
Salt and commercial ice-melt formulations can stain — or actually eat away — the concrete around your house. For an effective, but completely innocuous, way to melt the ice on your steps and walkways during those cold winter months, try sprinkling them with generous amounts of baking soda.
Do You Have to Rinse after Cleaning with Vinegar? Rinsing is not necessary! If you're simply using a vinegar and water solution to wipe and disinfect, you won't need to rinse.
Spray vinegar onto the moldy surface and leave it for an hour. Then wipe the area clean with water and allow the surface to dry. Any smell should clear within a few hours. While it's safe to use on most surfaces, vinegar is unlikely to be effective at cleaning mold off of soft surfaces.
HOW TO CLEAN MOLD FROM CONCRETE. The best solution is to scrub and clean the affected areas with a mold-killing detergent, like RMR-86 Instant Mold & Mildew Stain Remover, or a simple solution of household bleach and water. Be sure to scrub aggressively to get down into the pores of the concrete.
For newer rust stains that haven't penetrated into the concrete, you can often remove them successfully by using natural acidic cleaners found around the home. Lemon juice and white vinegar are both great options, but even Coca-Cola can remove minor rust stains on concrete because of its high phosphoric acid content.
Acetic acid's effect on soil is to lower its pH, which may make it unsuitable for growing some plants. If you were to pour high-concentration vinegar directly onto the soil, the effects could last longer than a month, but that would be an inappropriate use of vinegar as a herbicide.
Vinegar is an acid and as such can be corrosive, even in weak solutions. Distilled white vinegar has a pH around 2.4, making it more acidic than almost everything except stomach and battery acid.
The most effective homemade option is a mixture of white vinegar, salt, and liquid dish soap. Each of these ingredients has special properties that combine to kill weeds. Both the salt and the vinegar contain acetic acid, which serves to dry out and kill the plants.
For added effect, you can mix white vinegar with dish soap and a cup of salt. Once it's been thoroughly mixed, just spray the weeds all around with the spray bottle. You might need to do it once a day for two or three days until the weeds die.
White Vinegar:
For it to work, you have to wait for the vinegar to sit in the weeds from your garden for a few days. The vinegar will kill the weed's roots.
Yes, using vinegar is a good choice for cleaning pavers and very effective as well. Once vinegar is a non-toxic and biodegradable solution, it is a great way to clean your pavers without resorting to chemicals, which is safer, since you don't harm your plants, pets, or the soil.