Foam or polypropy­lene and acrylic adhe­sives applied to both sides of the base tape form a fas­ten­ing mate­r­i­al known as dou­ble-sided tape. In many house­hold cas­es, it is absolute­ly indis­pens­able. But some­times it needs to be removed from a par­tic­u­lar sur­face. How to peel off dou­ble-sided tape and do it cor­rect­ly?

Features of cleaning traces depending on the type of surface

Any of the meth­ods of clean­ing tape pri­mar­i­ly depends on the mate­r­i­al of the plane on which it was fixed.

Glass, mirror, tile

On the one hand, glass win­dows, car win­dows and mir­rors do not seem to be dif­fi­cult to wipe off: chem­i­cals will not spoil their sur­face. And on the oth­er hand, on the con­trary, the sur­face can be scratched, indeli­ble stains may remain on it.

Most suit­able for clean­ing:

• ace­tone,
• vodka/alcohol,
• melamine sponge,
• nail pol­ish remover,
• veg­etable oil,
• win­dow clean­ing spray.

ATTENTION! Do not remove adhe­sive tape by heat­ing, for which a hair dry­er is often used, since the glass / mir­ror sur­face can crack from hot air.

Suit­able for tiles:

• eras­er,
• vine­gar,
• melamine sponge,
• soda slur­ry, which is a soft abra­sive,
• wind­shield wiper is also effec­tive. As a rule, such sprays con­tain dirt sol­vents that can quick­ly remove dou­ble-sided tape,
• in dif­fi­cult cas­es, chem­i­cal prod­ucts for clean­ing smooth sur­faces, used accord­ing to the instruc­tions, will help.

Plastic

Before remov­ing dou­ble-sided tape from plas­tic, you need to under­stand the qual­i­ty of the plas­tic. If the mate­r­i­al is thin, the use of aggres­sive agents is strong­ly dis­cour­aged.

The best means will be:

• an ordi­nary eras­er, with which traces from toys, cas­es of house­hold appli­ances, elec­tron­ic devices are well wiped off;
• sol­vents “in the face” of vod­ka, alco­hol, white spir­it;

ADVICE! It is rec­om­mend­ed to test the action of these sub­stances on an incon­spic­u­ous area to make sure that it does not threat­en whitish spots on the sur­face.

• heat­ing with a house­hold hair dry­er, fol­lowed by wash­ing with soap;
• mask­ing tape; it is glued to the place dam­aged by the dou­ble-sided “col­league” and sharply torn off along with pol­lu­tion.

Wood

A uni­ver­sal way for a tree of any kind is to use med­ical alco­hol. Untreat­ed wood is cleaned with white spir­it. This method is not suit­able for pol­ished sur­faces, as it leaves streaks.

For doors or coun­ter­tops, you can apply the safest method — clean­ing with an eras­er. The same sur­faces can be treat­ed with heat.

Among the rec­om­mend­ed means for remov­ing adhe­sive tape from fur­ni­ture, one can also name:

• baby mas­sage oil
• clean­ing creams for the kitchen,
• veg­etable oil.

Laminate

This type of mate­r­i­al is pro­posed to be cleaned from dou­ble-sided tape using:

• soap solu­tion,
• shav­ing foam,
• dish deter­gent,
• sun­flower oil.

The rad­i­cal method is con­sid­ered to be the “Antibi­tu­men” tool for cars.

IMPORTANT! If it is not pos­si­ble to check the effect of the drug on the “probe”, then it is bet­ter not to use it on the lam­i­nate with which the floor is laid.

The 3M cit­rus clean­er will reli­ably clean the lam­i­nate — a spe­cial prepa­ra­tion for clean­ing sur­faces from glue.

Painted or wallpapered walls

It is quite dif­fi­cult to tear off the adhe­sive tape from the wall­pa­per. Oil or oth­er rec­om­mend­ed sub­stances can only hope­less­ly spoil the sur­face of the wall. You can try to gen­tly scrape off the remain­ing adhe­sive tape from it.

And to speed up the process, you can use a hair dry­er to warm up. Some sug­gest soft­en­ing the glue with a warm (not hot!) iron, iron­ing the prob­lem area through a thin cloth or gauze. It is good to remove adhe­sive tape with alco­hol from walls paint­ed with water-based emul­sion.

How to remove double sided tape

stationery eraser

An ordi­nary eras­er removes the rem­nants of adhe­sive tape quite eas­i­ly. Its lay­er is gen­tly and not press­ing too hard, so as not to dam­age the sur­face, rub with an eras­er. After that, it remains only to remove the lumps of base and glue formed dur­ing this.

Drill with rubber nozzle

Sticky traces of tape, like the tape itself, are suc­cess­ful­ly removed using a rub­ber disc to remove dou­ble-sided tape — drill noz­zles. This method is good for remov­ing pol­lu­tion over a large area.

The heating

This method is only suit­able if the mate­r­i­al on which the adhe­sive tape is “stuck” is heat-resis­tant. Oth­er­wise, the object being cleaned may be seri­ous­ly dam­aged. So heat­ing is quite effec­tive in clean­ing. For this, a reg­u­lar hair dry­er is most often used. With its help, the sur­face is heat­ed, and when the adhe­sive mass soft­ens, the residues are care­ful­ly removed with a cot­ton cloth.

Chemicals

Liquid helpers

Such effec­tive liq­uids as:

• petrol,
• paint thin­ners, in par­tic­u­lar 646, con­sist­ing of ace­tone, alco­hols and ethers, as well as spe­cial means for get­ting rid of adhe­sive tape such as Label Remover. True, they have two seri­ous dis­ad­van­tages: not all mate­ri­als can ade­quate­ly endure such pro­cess­ing, and a smell that does not dis­ap­pear for a long time;
• ace­tone-free nail pol­ish remover
• for igni­tion (with the pro­vi­so that not all types of glue are sub­ject to it),
• for wash­ing win­dows.

Vinegar

Table vine­gar eas­i­ly copes with duct tape, since it is a rather aggres­sive agent. It is able to clean the sur­faces of almost all mate­ri­als — from glass to met­al.

What means will ruin the coating

Any of the clean­ing agents does not have uni­ver­sal prop­er­ties, there­fore it is not suit­able for all mate­ri­als. When choos­ing how to remove dou­ble-sided tape, you should first check in an incon­spic­u­ous place how it affects a par­tic­u­lar sur­face.

Based on the char­ac­ter­is­tics and mate­r­i­al from which the item to be cleaned is made, and the clean­ing agent itself, the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions can be drawn:

• hard sponges and abra­sive mate­ri­als that can scratch it are not suit­able for clean­ing glass;
• ace­tone in this case is quite suit­able, but you should not use it for paint­ed, var­nished and plas­tic sur­faces;
• not all types of plas­tic can be cleaned with alco­hol com­pounds and kerosene;
• a mix­ture of soda and “dish­wash­ing” liq­uid in hot water works well, but it is not rec­om­mend­ed to clean paint­ed sur­faces with it.

Helpful Tips

• Ini­tial­ly, when glu­ing dou­ble-sided tape, it must be remem­bered that when it is sub­se­quent­ly removed, a lighter area may remain over time.
• Anoth­er reminder of the pre­lim­i­nary test­ing of the prod­ucts on any part of the item being cleaned will not be super­flu­ous.
• Fresh traces of adhe­sive tape are always eas­i­er to remove than “well-estab­lished”.
• Do not use house­hold chem­i­cals on paint­ed and pol­ished pieces of fur­ni­ture to avoid dam­ag­ing the var­nish or paint.
• On a var­nished sur­face, the method of heat­ing with a hair dry­er should be used with great care, since expo­sure to hot air may leave a whitish stain on it.
• Before pro­ceed­ing with the removal of adhe­sive tape from elec­tron­ic devices, they should, first­ly, be de-ener­gized, and sec­ond­ly, do not over­do it with clean­ing agents in the form of liq­uids and oils, so as not to dam­age the equip­ment.
• When work­ing with aggres­sive and tox­ic chem­i­cals, you need to pro­tect your­self with gloves, a res­pi­ra­tor, appro­pri­ate “uni­forms” and car­ry out all manip­u­la­tions in a room that is well ven­ti­lat­ed.

Using these tips, you can eas­i­ly get rid of traces of adhe­sive tape on any sur­face.