I must share this little secret. While I’m all for hiring a professional when necessary (i.e. reupholstery, furniture refinishing, electricians, etc.); however, when it comes to those nasty white heat stains on wood furniture you can fix this yourself. I did it, with fantastic results. Click here for step by step instructions on how to remove white heat stains from furniture.
Warning: Make sure to read the instructions carefully – and the comments – before proceeding, especially if your table (or other piece of furniture) is not solid wood. The comment below was particularly helpful. Best of luck!
Bonnie
The hot iron with steam on a towel takes practice. If you leave the hot water from the towel (really what you are doing is making a hot damp towel to fix the table) on the table for too long you will make a bigger white mark. Not to worry you can fix it .
The right way to do it is to tune the amount of steam to how thick your towel is. It is better to use a thicker rather than thinner towel. The thicker the towel the more pumps of steam you will need, but it will also give you a broader and more homogenous result. A thinner towel will only fix the small area where the steam jets are. I got best results with a white dish towel folded up twice so 4x thickness.
So for each thickness you use, use that many pumps of steam max. So for the 4x thickness use 2-4 pumps of steam, then swipe the towel off the area quickly. What you are doing is swiping a hot damp towel over the area, that is how you fix the table. Once you get it as good as you can (which using my method, almost unnoticable) finish by rubbing in a few drops of olive oil and it will look good as new.
This method was done on a modern light colored wood table, I think the wood is particleboard with veneer. And whatever the modern cheap clearcoat is.
how to remove white heat stains…. i got some wet/dry sandpaper. dipping it frequently in water and softly rubbing the affected area the white colour went within a minute. job very satisfactory according to the wife’s verdict
Thanks for the tip!
I would like to offer a correction to the answers here. The root cause of the “cloudy” white stain on wood tables caused by hot plates is the moisture that is trapped within the varnish on the table.
This is specially for really hard old reclaimed wood tables (teak, casuani, etc). These tables are typically finished with “oil” varnish or polish and not water. Now I tried everything from hot iron to baking soda and everything else in between. The one thing that made is worse was using a steam iron. That’s because with steam it caused the oil polish on the table trap more moisture and it made it worse (like others have also seen if you google). The trick is to get the moisture out. So with a water based finish using a simple iron on low heat works great. However after 4 hours I realized that for oil based polish you need a very hot iron and a kitchen towel. This is very important because unlike water polish with oil polish I realized I need to get the table extremely hot and then it “pushes” the water out of the table (yes you can see beads of it) and the towel should soak it up right away otherwise it goes back.
So to summarize for oil based finishes you need a dry iron at max temp out on a kitchen towel on the table and left there for about 20-30 seconds on each spot and then wipe off the water beads right away. Repeat until no more water comes out. This is different from water based finish. Do NOT use a steam iron on a oil based finish. Hope this helps. Thanks.
Hiya, thanks for the tips. My table is solid oak with varnish. I have tried using the towel and dry iron method. It improved it alittle but it is still visible.
Thanks
Hi Paula,
Thanks for your feedback. I’m glad to hear it worked, even if only a little. You could try applying a finishing product, like Restore-A-Finish, that has a mild darkening pigment to even out the colouring.
Best,
Gild & Co.
Purchased a beautiful oak dining set, used, that had several white heat marks on it. Who knows how long the marks were there. I was VERY skeptical about using an iron to remove them. Could only envision the potential of iron shaped marks on the tabletop. Toothpaste, and other DIY methods failed. All I can say is the advise from hunnypuppy was spot on. Put a clean white bath towel over the worst mark and applied hot, dry heat from iron. Within 15 minutes the mark is gone, area is polished with a high quality wood polish, and table is looking perfect! Feeling pretty proud! Thanks for the advise.
Hi I have an engineered wood table with the white hazy spots. I tried this fix and spot only got worse. Does this not work on this type of “wood”.
Please help! What about a buffet table that isn’t wood!!!! How do I get the white heat stains out!
Hi! I wish I had an answer for you. For a lacquer or non-wood finish I am not sure. Good luck!
Hi All,
I have a teak dining table that i think is ruined — the white stains are pretty ‘deep’-looking. Should I try to sand the tabletop?
this table, like all of my teak items, is not varnished, but i did try to do the iron/steam/cloth thing and i think i made it worse.
Help!
Thanks all,
Lydia
Hi Lydia,
See the comment above from “HunnyPuppy”. She has some good tips for teak tables. All the best!
Thank you Hunnypuppy! I had two big white heat stains on my teak table and it worked using the hot iron and cloth! No Steam! I was so angry at myself for making those stains it is such a beautiful table once again. Hugs to ya!
Hi. I have an Amish made dining table that is stained and poly on top. I believe it’s oak. We did try to lightly scuff with 000 or 0000 paper and the next did a new coat of poly. However this did not work. The white heat marks came right back. Can we still try to iron method?
OMG if I hadn’t done it and seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it! Thank you. My oak table is like new. Used dry heat and towel. Never put a pizza box down.
Thank you, Hunnypuppy! I was devastated when I thought I had ruined my favorite dining room table EVER. Your dry iron and cotton towel worked PERFECTLY and restored my table to its original condition. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Thank you so much Bonnie I was ironing some small items on a towel on my wooden table when I remove the towel there was a white stain all over my table I was devastated. So I googled and watched some videos , I was a little bit sceptical so so I thought he goes I’m going to try.
I used a tea towel with a hot iron and no steam took a few times as I ironed over the tea towel I wiped the area with the tea towel and it worked . Thank you 😊
Glad it worked for you!
I have a mahogany table with jasper wood stain and because of the white stains its ruined. I tried removing it by making a paste of 1 tablespoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon water. I rub it gently the spot in a circular motion until it disappears. I did not to use too much water to remove water stains from wood. Thanks for the tips though.
Thanks for your comments!
I was beginning to see white spots on my dining table so I googled and tried the method of using a clean white towel and dry heat from an iron. And Surprise the spots disappeared within minutes! I’m to thrilled! Thanks a Million!
Yep, we have wood kitchen table and always get white cloudy areas due to using paper plates for family gatherings. Then yesterday I made a huge one myself by using the table as an ironing board, I had put a towel down and ironed the curtains I was making, using steam. When done I lifted the towel, to my horror, I unknowingly had made a huge, really white, cloudy spot on the half of the table. Researched diy fix and found this diy posting. I ended up using hot iron on cotton setting, no steam, a really thin cotton towel. Had to leave the iron on the spots a bit. I found that moving the iron around while working each area not working more than an iron size spot at a time kept the iron image from forming on the surface. Worked great. I was able to remove all of the cloudiness.
The hot dry iron and towel method also worked for nail polish remover damage. My mother knocked over the bottle and almost the whole lot went over my wooden coffee table. I was devastated and was certain it was ruined until I came across this tip. It took a couple of hours of persistent work but to my amazement the stain is pretty much gone. I followed up with some furniture polish and it’s almost invisible (I’ve also now put a piece of glass on top to protect it from any future accidents – and mother is no longer allowed to use nail polish remover anywhere near the furniture!). Whatever you try, remember to always check on an inconspicuous spot first.