How to Remove a Rust Stain from Siding

LESLIE: In New Jersey, Barbara listens to us on WCTC and she’s got a rust stain that’s on her siding from her mailbox.

Is that true? What’s going on, Barbara?

BARBARA: OK, we have vinyl siding and we have a metal mailbox attached. And over the course of years, from the rain and everything, it started leaving a rusty streak down the vinyl siding. We just do not know what to use to get this off.

LESLIE: Well, it’s not the end of the world. Have you tried a product called TSP? It’s also known as trisodium phosphate?

BARBARA: TSP?

LESLIE: TSP? Write it down.

BARBARA: I did.

LESLIE: OK. And what you do, you just get it in the paint aisle of any sort of home center. And it’s something that you mix together with a consistency of water and you can get it to be really loose or you can get it to be sort of like a paste and what you might want to do is get it to be a little bit paste-like and put that on the rust stain and let it sit there for a little bit. But you need to make sure you wash it out really well because it gets sort of soapy and slippery, so make sure you really clean that up. But that should do it because we find it gets rust out of concrete floors even, so it should do it for you.

BARBARA: Oh, that’d be great because the steps too, right where it dripped down, there’s some rust on the step also.

TOM: Well, there you go. You can kill two birds with one stone. Barbara, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.