Like anything else in your home, your TV can get downright filthy. Sitting in your living room, it will gather dust, get splashed with drinks (you’d be shocked at how far a liquid particle can travel from your coffee table), and more. It’s therefore important to clean your TV regularly as you notice grime building up on it. But your television is a delicate object designed to be looked at, not touched. In your attempts to clean a TV, it’s all too easy to end up damaging it. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t clean your TV. You absolutely should – removing dust and debris can help make your TV last longer than you thought possible. But it does mean you should take care to do so properly. There are a number of rookie mistakes that some TV owners only learn the hard way, so we’ve rounded up some of the most common here, where you can read about the consequences of these common errors instead of experiencing them firsthand. From corrosive chemicals to out-of-sight surfaces, here are five of the most common mistakes people make when cleaning a TV.

One of the easiest mistakes to make while cleaning your TV is using the wrong kind of cloth to wipe it down. The surface layer of most television displays is made from a delicate and thin polarizing layer that helps you to see what’s on screen. That makes it quite different from the display on your smartphone, which is most likely coated in a layer of hardened glass that is mostly safe to wipe down with your t-shirt. But unless you use a non-abrasive cloth on your TV, you are almost certain to damage it, causing scratches and wiping away the outer coating. Even seemingly soft products like paper towels and tissues have microscopic fibers that can scratch up the coating on your TV screen, and the same goes for standard cloth dish towels.

A specialized microfiber cloth is the only safe cleaning implement for your LCD or OLED TV. These cloths have very thin fibers that trap the dust and residue clinging to your TV’s display without taking part of the TV along with it. You should look for cloths which are essentially large versions of those used to clean eyeglasses, such as the Apple Polishing Cloth, or other cloths made specifically to clean flatscreen TVs.

Windex works for your windows, so why not for your TV, right? Stop right there, because using glass cleaner on your TV is a costly mistake. As mentioned above, the surface layer of your TV is a thin and delicate polymer, not a thick panel of glass. As such, products that leave your windows or mirrors shiny and polished can permanently damage your TV. The biggest culprits are alcohol, acetone, and ammonia. Those are powerful cleaning agents  — far too powerful, in fact, for your TV set.

You can find specialized TV cleaner available for purchase at big box retailers, but although they’ll do the job, they can cost a decent amount more than you’d expect. Some recommend making your own TV cleaning solution using distilled water with a drop of mild dish soap mixed into it, while others claim distilled water alone is sufficient for the task. Others add a small amount of vinegar to the distilled water for particularly stubborn spots. If you do choose to buy a cleaning product, be sure to check that it does not contain alcohol, ammonia, or acetone.

Even if you’ve got a high-quality microfiber cloth and specialized TV cleaner, you might have a hard time getting some particular bit of residue off your TV. Maybe your kid spilled a root beer that splashed on the screen and dried. Whatever the case, when dealing with a stubborn bit of cleaning on your TV display, you might end up applying some elbow grease. Before you know it, you’ll have damaged the TV far more than that pesky bit of gunk on the screen ever could have.

Your TV’s display is made up of multiple thin layers.LCD and OLED panels have multiple thin layers of materials that conduct electricity, create colors, and make those colors visible to you with emitted light. When you press on the surface layer, you’re compacting the entire stack, and once one of the layers is damaged, the display won’t function properly. If you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll see some dead pixels or minor discoloration, but press too hard in the wrong place, and the entire display can malfunction.

Do your best to clean with friction, not pressure. If you’re dealing with a stubborn dirty patch on your TV display, try moving the cloth quickly but gently in a small circle without applying downward pressure on the TV display. Reapply specialized electronics or TV cleaner solution as needed. You may also wish to use compressed air or an electric duster (not a feather duster or wand) to remove the initial layer of dust before cleaning in order to reduce the risk of dust particles scratching the screen’s top layer as they’re dragged by the cleaning cloth.

One of the easiest mistakes to make while cleaning a television is to ignore everything other than the screen. After all, you might think, as long as you can see your movies and TV shows in crystal-clear quality, who cares that the backside of the unit is dusty? But that’s a crucial error, since many TVs have heat vents and ports to get rid of excess thermal energy. When dust or debris clogs those exhausts, it can cause performance issues with the TV, much like what can happen when you don’t clean the vents on a computer. Then there are the ports, such as your HDMI, coaxial, and USB ports. If those become dirty, you may begin to notice errors when you plug peripherals into them, and some devices may not work at all.

The longer you go without cleaning the entire TV, the more likely it becomes that these issues will occur. Aside from cleaning every so often, it can be a good idea to dust the TV using compressed air or an electric duster  — not a dusting wand, feather duster, or anything else that will touch the display  — before you clean, to ensure you’re able to clean more effectively. For some tips and tricks, check out our guide on how to clean behind your TV without moving it.

After you’ve cleaned your TV to perfection and settled in to watch a show, do you really want to reach for a grimy remote? Not only is the remote the part of the TV you touch most often, but it is likely left sitting on your couch or coffee table. That means it’s collecting oils and residue from every pair of hands that touch it, as well as being in the path of random spills and accidents. After too much schmutz builds up on a remote, the buttons can become stiff and hard to use. In severe cases, liquid or dirt can work its way into the casing and the sensitive electronic components inside, causing them to malfunction, or even to break entirely. How often should you clean your TV remote? We recommend doing so at least once a month.

The good news is that you don’t need to be as careful when cleaning your remote as you do when cleaning the TV itself. Simply remove the batteries and shake any debris loose, then dampen (but do not wet) a soft cloth with a mild, alcohol-based cleaning solution and clean as thoroughly as possible, paying special attention to hard-to-reach areas between buttons. If you’re having trouble getting into any crevices, you can use a Q-Tip-style cotton swab dipped in your cleaning solution to reach them. If you’re still having trouble reaching any visible grime, such as desiccated skin buildup trapped in the plastic seams, you can use a toothpick or toothbrush to loosen it up. Dry everything off and pop the batteries back in when you’re done.