When you let the writing on whiteboards stay on for long enough – say, a couple of month – dry-erase markers stop being “dry-erase” and start being “leave unwipeable shadowy traces behind”. You’re left with an unsightly board, no matter how often you wipe. Water doesn’t help, at least not against dried up German Edding markers.
Even worse are traces of the slim tape that some teams use to create tables on their boards. Its remains are stickier than candy floss and way uglier.
Fear not, my colleague Frieda has the miracle cure: Clean your whiteboard with “Wepos Kunstoffreiniger” (= Wepos plastics cleaner) and it will become perfectly clean and smoother than a baby’s butt. Way smoother, actually.
That’s also the catch: After wiping your board with the cleaner you have to wipe it with water. Otherwise no sticky note will stick to the board. Try it, it’s quite fascinating. The sticky notes fall right off of the infinitely smooth surface.
If you don’t have tape traces you can also get rid of the old marker markings with a wet microfibre cloth. Again, kudos to Frieda for finding this trick.
The very last resort, for people without any equipment, is ye olde overwriting trick: Retrace the old writing with a whiteboard marker. The solvents in the marker’s color will also work on the old markings and make them wipeable again. It’s works, it’s just tedious.
Do you have any neat tricks for cleaning dried-in markers?
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