Cleaning Car Headlights - Why Headlights Fog or Haze Over

Headlamps can become cloudy or fogged due to two main causes:

1. Oxidation of the plastic lens (most common). Most modern cars use polycarbonate plastic headlamp lenses, which are strong and lightweight but prone to oxidation. UV rays break down the clear coating that protects the plastic. Over time, the lens becomes dull, yellow, or milky.

2. Moisture buildup inside the headlamp. This happens when:

- Seals weaken with age

- Small cracks form

- Temperature changes cause condensation inside the housing

Impact on Driving Safety

Foggy or oxidized headlights can reduce light output by up to 50–80%, which can:

- Shorten nighttime visibility distance

- Reduce reaction time to hazards

- Increase glare for oncoming drivers

- Make the vehicle less visible during bad weather

This is why keeping your headlamps clear is essential for safe driving.

Step‑by‑Step Instructions to Clean a Fogged Headlamp

Using supplies commonly included in a car-cleaning kit: microfiber cloths, mild soap, rubbing compound/polish, masking tape, and UV protectant.

What You’ll Need

• From your typical cleaning kit:
• Microfiber cloths
• All‑purpose car soap or mild detergent
• Spray bottle with water
• Rubbing compound, polishing compound, or “headlight restoration compound”
• Masking tape
• UV sealant or protectant (often included with kits)
• Optional: Sandpaper sheets (e.g., 1000–3000 grit), only if included

Cleaning Process (External Oxidation)

• Wash the headlamp
• Mix mild soap and water.
• Clean the lens with a microfiber cloth to remove dirt and road grime.
• Rinse and dry completely.

• Protect the surrounding paint
• Use masking tape to cover the paint around the headlamp.
• This prevents accidental scuffing when polishing.

Apply rubbing compound or polish

• Put a small amount of compound on a microfiber cloth.
• Rub it onto the lens using firm, circular motions.
• Continue for 2–5 minutes per headlamp.
• Wipe clean and repeat as needed until the lens becomes clearer.

(Optional) Wet‑sanding (only if included and needed)

I

f the headlamp is severely oxidized:

• Spray water onto the lens.
• Sand gently with 1000–3000 grit sandpaper in back‑and‑forth motions.
• Keep the surface wet at all times.
• After sanding, use rubbing compound to polish the surface smooth.

Apply UV protectant

After clearing the oxidation, seal the lens so it doesn’t get cloudy again:

• Apply a UV sealant or headlight coating from your cleaning kit.
• Let it dry according to instructions.

This step is crucial — skipping it allows oxidation to return quickly.

Cleaning Moisture Inside the Headlamp

If fogging happens inside the housing, cleaning the outside won’t solve it.

Quick fixes:

• Remove the bulb and allow the housing to air out for several hours.
• Use silica gel packets inside the housing if accessible.

If moisture keeps returning:

• The headlamp seal likely needs repair or replacement.

Summary

Fogged headlights happen mainly from UV oxidation or internal moisture, and both significantly reduce nighttime visibility and driving safety. With basic supplies from a cleaning kit, you can restore clarity through washing, compounding, and applying UV protectant, or sand if necessary.

Before the Cleaning 

After the Cleaning 

Side by side comparison. 

Running a new water line for a Fridge

My fridge, which I am quite positive is older than I am, was on its last leg for some time and needed to be replaced. Not only does it feel great to finally upgrade an appliance in the kitchen, but it also saves on our electricity bill. Most new refrigerators are rated as Energy Star which means they are generally 20% more efficient than minimum federal standards. Don’t forget to write off your purchase on qualified Energy Star products when filing your taxes as well as submitting for local rebates and credits from your local electrical company. Three ways to save or get paid to upgrade my fridge, how can I say no to that?

My old fridge was a standalone fridge with no special perks that many new fridges now come standard with. No, I opted out of getting a fridge with a TV and WiFi capability. Call me old fashion, but I believe my fridge should store food and other basic nourishments.

The new fridge that I purchased has a hookup for water and an ice maker. To maximize the use of my fridge, I am going to have to run a water line from a cold water source to my fridge. I purchased a water hook-up kit which included copper tubing, a saddle valve, and a compression union. I had to
also purchase a second compression union, which I will use to extend the line from the basement to the connection inside the fridge. 

First thing I did was find a convenient location behind where the new fridge would be located to punch a hole in the wall. This is going to be a entry point to the first floor for the cooper line that I would be running from the basement. This would have to be a place that is out of the way and would not be an inconvenience should I decide to later move the fridge to another location. We do not have a nook or built in fixture for a fridge so we have a little more flexibility to where we can place our refrigerator.  We decided to keep it in the same location and have no intent in moving to any other place in the kitchen, or at least in the near future.

Once I made the opening in the wall, I drilled a hole going into the basement. It wasn't easy as I could not drill straight down but was forced to operator my drill at an angle. But the advantage is that it provided me a general location of where to drill up from within the basement. Initially, I tried to start drilling from the basement but as you can see in the picture below, my measurements were slightly off. I thought I had made my measurements correctly but they were apparently 5 or so inches off.
 

As you already know, we do not have a finished basement so it makes it easier for me to find a water line that is the closest to the fridge with easy access for modification. If you have a finished basement, you have to be a little more creative in gaining access to the floor directly underneath your kitchen.

I than took my saddle valve and placed it over the existing copper water pipe. All I had to do was screw in either side and the device, which the pressure created by the tightening of the screws, punctured the existing water line without ever having to shut off the water supply to any other place in the house. Ensure you have the saddle value in the off position or you have a slight mess to clean up.

Take a compression union and connect the cooper tubing to the saddle valve. I kept a few feet of copper tubing and tied it at the connection point. Never hurts to have some slack for the flexibility of moving the water line should I need to for a future project.

I placed a plastic junction box in the hole that I made in the kitchen and fed the copper tubing through it from the basement. I placed a coaxial cable face plate over the copper tuning.

Follow the instructions of your refrigerator to make the appropriate connections to the fridge itself. Once the connections are made, take another compression union and connect the water hose to the copper tubing.

Go back to the and turn on the saddle valve to allow water to flow through the new junction you created. Keep an eye on all the connections to ensure there are no leaks or breaks in the tubing. Finally, I am now ready to get a glass and taste the fresh, cold and filtered water from my new fridge.

Renovating a Planting Bed, Summer Garden Projects #3

If you have already perused through Summer Garden Project #1 and Summer Garden Project #2, you will understand that this is the continued effort on our part in trying to reclaim the front of our house. I am just truly excited that I do not have to deal with removing Ivy in this project. My back still aches whenever I think about the Ivy Removal Initiative we did the year prior.

It's never fun to see the holistic task at hand. No matter what we do to try to tame this area, it just looks so disheveled. The area is on the side portion of the lawn that divides my property with my neighbors. I could not tabulate the total number of plants that were located on this small plot of land.

Time to get to work. My trusty tools and supplies consisted of a shovel, a spade, hand tiller (no I did not bother renting the motorized one for this project), plenty of garbage bags, top soil and mulch. The plants I wanted to remove have been there for years which required me to dig almost a foot and a half down in order to get to the bulb and the intricate root systems for each of these plants. Be sure to remove as much as you can, if not all of it, as they will be fighting for natural resources of the plants you are putting in and these old root systems may regrow and regain control of the area. I have no desire to redo this project. 

I do not know where I got the energy, but I was able to remove all the plant life in just a few short hours. I spent a good amount of time just turning the soil in order to remove any roots that I had missed and to also mix in the top soil that I purchased at the local home improvement store.

The remainder of the project is very similar to the later half of Summer Garden Project #1 and Summer Garden Project #2. Just remember to do your due diligence in the types of plants you are looking to plant. How much sunlight do the plants require and does the location meet those needs? Are the plants you are choosing to transplant in your yard rated for the area of the country you live in? If you are going to Home Depot or Lowes, they will generally carry plants that are ideal for the area of the country you reside in. It's the specialty garden centers that may bring in more exotic plants that may not be apt to you climate conditions. Just remember, if you are going with those other plants, they will require a significant effort on your part to ensure they can thrive in your lawn. 

As you can see, we are very simple people and thus our gardening vision reflects that. Granted these plants are in it's infancy and will grow to fill that plot of land, we chose to only plant 4 different species in this area. A far cry from it's previous condition, just a few short hours ago. We added a number of bags of mulch to help keep water in the soil and added the stone perimeter as we did in the previous project.

By removing all the erroneous plants, we now have given the appearance of a much larger front yard, or so I tell myself to believe. Three out of four sections of the front of the house has been completed. Now to take on the next Garden Project.

Front Lawn Ivy Removal Initiative, Summer Garden Project #2

The next work we did was at the end of the front walkway which meets the curb of our sidewalk where there was an overgrowth of ivy. The picture really shows the distinct contrast between the crowded bushes on the left of the house and the right side of the house which is a result of the Summer Garden Project #1. 

To continue this minimalist garden theme, we wanted to remove the eye sore from the front of the house. The ivy took over a large portion of the front lawn, covers the steps onto our walkway and was an overall distraction to the aesthetics of how we want the garden to look like. 

Where are the steps to our house?

A closer look at the enemy…

The other side of the walkway.

This has to be least enjoyable garden project thus far. Ivy is a resilient plant which has an extensive underground root system. Here is a link to a little bit more information about Ivy (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg358).

Some success! This is what the Ivy looks like under the leaves after pulling it out of the ground.

My tears of joy quickly becomes tears of sorrow when I realize all that hard work only resulted in less than a square foot of ivy removal. When removing ivy, ensure that you use the big black contractor bag or other durable disposal bags. Ivy can grow almost anyway, by placing it in the traditional brown lawn bags may allow the ivy to rip through the bag and expose the ivy to untainted part of the lawn.

It took the woman of the household about 4 hours to pull this amount of ivy from our lawn. The man of the household took about 30 minutes to pull out the other half of the ivy to include removing the extensive root network that goes in about a foot into the ground. 

No ivy or is there?

Pulling the ivy is not the only thing that must be done. Dealing with the strange bugs, dead and rotted ivy pieces, leaves from years past and hidden garbage are just some of the joys of this project. The root removal requires a little bit more ingenuity and a reason to make a trip to Home Depot!

This helped cut hours of back breaking work into about 2 minutes of fun with the Honda F220AN 130 RPM gas operated tiller! (http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/products/modeldetail.aspx?page=modeldetail&section=P2TL&modelname=F220AN&modelid=F220AN) This $900 tool cost only about $45 for an all-day rental.

Before the fun can begin, we need to outline the work area to till in order to aerate the soil and remove the deeply embedded ivy roots. I used a power cord as this can be easily adjusted to outline curves and frame the area to be worked on. 

  
 Another reason we used the orange power cord is because we had a can of orange spray-paint to outline the work area. 

Don't forget to remove the wire before tilling...

Time to have some fun. By far, the best part of the project. Just remember to stay within the lines.

Now that the fun is over, now it’s time to go back to work. We cut into the ground about 3 inches around the border of the area. The depth was based upon the stone we were going to lay around the area. We evened out the soil and planted the first plant just to center our planned layout. Then we laid out weed guard, which is a black cloth-type material that you lay over the soil to prevent weed from growing out through the mulch but is permeable to water allowing water to get through to the root system of the plants. I used brick to hold down the weed guard as a tucked the cloth into the corners between the soil and the walkway.

This is where the learning curve came into play. The first garden area, we followed the directions and suggestions made by garden books, forums and blogs. We laid out the weed guard, marked with our orange spray-paint where the plants were to be placed, cut through the weed-guard and dig up the ground in order to plant the perennials and annuals. You will see how difficult that task can be when you feel the material that the weed-guard is comprised of and trying to do the previously mentioned steps. It was painfully annoying to cut a small hole, working with a hand trowel through the relatively small hole to dig up the dirt and place the plants in the area. 

For the second half of the project, we opted to excavate the holes prior to laying the weed-guard down. Once the guard-guard was done, it was pretty easy to feel for the holes in order to cut the respective slits in the weed-guard in order to plant. 

As for the aesthetic work on the garden, we used a granite-esque looking stone that was 4 inch by 8 inch. It is perfect for outdoor projects for creating walkway, garden patio or decorative borders, as we have opted for. I placed the stones against the cut in the ground and used a rubber mallet to straighten and level the stones. Using loose dirt, I poured it between the cut and the stone to straighten the stones and ensure it remained flush against the cut. 

Once the border was completely laid out, I covered the area with regular mulch.

Closer view of the right patch.

Closer view of the left patch.

Panoramic view of Summer Garden Project #1 and #2. Summer Garden Project #3 will be to tackle the last of the older bushes seen in the left side of the house.

Before even thinking about Summer Garden Project #3, I’m just going to stand here in the middle of the street and enjoy the fact that Summer Garden Project #2 is completed!

Renovating a Planting Bed, Summer Garden Projects #1

First, lets get revved up for these projects by looking at the two photos below:

They are before and after shots of the first of two major garden projects we completed this summer.  Aside from looking pretty, updating a garden area has major benefits for a home owner:

1. You can remove old mulch and apply new garden soil in planting beds.

2. You can uncrowd plants in over populated beds.

3.  If you do not like pruning (and who does?) you can replace plants that are too large and fast-growing with smaller and slower-growing species.  However, although this means easier upkeep in the long run, this will require a little bit of research and thought on your part.

4. If weeds are a problem, you can install weed-guard in your plant beds.

Here is some motivation for replacing the old planting bed:

What is not wrong with this picture?  The planting bed is very over crowded, with too many plants in a small area.  There are a lot of different types of plants, too many for my taste.  Some of plants have become deformed from lack of care and damaged from the elements.  Finally, there is a large buildup of dead leaves and other junk (garbage as well) mixed in with the mulch and it is not easy to remove because of the crowded plants.

Before you redo a garden area, there are some basics you should educate yourself about.  You should research what your zone is (mine is zone 6), and what type of plants are best for your zone (they will be the easiest to have thrive in your yard, with minimal upkeep).  You should match the plants you are picking to how much sunlight the area gets (full sun, part sun, or shade is very important). Finally, the plants final mature size should fit into the space (that way it will require minimal pruning).  Of course, if you love a certain strange plant, that is not for your zone, and grows too big for the space....  you could still try to grow it, but you will need to put consistent effort in up keeping that plant...  and it will easily die if you do not stay consistent.  So, be smart, and find plants that are nice to look at, but also are easy to care for.

Link to: Garden Planning Basics

The first thing we did was remove the old plants.  This required digging around each of the bushes, and getting underneath the bush's root ball.  Once you get this up, you have successfully removed most of the roots.  After that, break up the bush into pieces, and either put it in a mulch pile, or put it in the gardening brown bags you can pick up at Home Depot.  Next, mix some fresh soil into the planting bed, before planting your new bushes.

Bye bye my bushes!

                                                               One bush after another!

                                                                                                              Sorry little bush!

The second thing I did in planning my new beds was basic research:

- How do I balance winter color with spring color i.e. evergreens with spring flowering deciduous bushes?

- What color flowers, leaves and bark complement each other?

- Will the size of each plant fit in it's new location when fully grown?

- Will the plant grow well in the amount of light and zone I am in?

To solve these questions I decided on a few standards that I will follow for all my gardens around my house.  I wanted a nice balance of red, green and yellow plants.  

The red plants are the dwarf Japanese maple (will grow to a max of eight feet, perfect!), and barberry bushes (3' x3'). The maple will lose it's leaves in the winter, but maintains a beautiful bark color and shape. 

                                                                     Japanese Maple

The barberry will keep their leaves in winter unless it stays below zero for an extended period.  

The yellow bushes are Euonymus (2' x 2'), aka winter creepers, they are a yellow variety and will keep their color all winter.  

                                                         Euonymus Gold, Winter Creeper

The centerpiece bush is a green leafed Azalea that will bloom pinkish red flowers in the spring.  It will lose leaves in the winter, but the bark has a nice look as well.

                                                                           Azalea

All these plants will grow great in zone 6, require water once a week, and are great in full sun.  Before purchasing the plants, measure your garden bed, and figure out how many plants will fit into the bed area.  Do not over fill the garden!  When you first purchase the plants, they are immature.  They WILL grow, remember the main rule of gardening, things take time!

                                                               The plants we picked out

When planting a container bush, turn the container onto it's side and crush it.  Turn the container and crush it a bit on each side till the dirt loosens and you can get the plant out.  Next, while soil and dirt are getting everywhere, take the roots and try to separate them so they are not in such a tight ball.  The roots grew like that to survive in the container, but it will harm the shrubs growth if you plant it like that.  Place it in a hole twice the size of the roots, and fill in with dirt.  Do not bury it too deep, the soil line should come up just above the root ball.  Fill in around the plants with plenty of mulch and keep it well watered after planting.  Do not feed the plant immediately after transplanting unless the instructions for the plant specifically say so.  Some shrubs need time to adjust to the new soil and sun conditions.  Plant feed forces it to want to grow quickly, which may end up causing harm if it has not finished adjusting.

Here is a link to more information about taking care of shrubs and trees.  I agree with all the guidelines they have:

Link to: Tree and Shrub Care

Finally, with all the work complete, you have a fresh new garden!