Cleaning your LEGO® bricks is very simple! We recommend that you clean your LEGO® pieces by hand with a soft cloth or sponge in water no hotter than 40°C/104°F. Higher temperatures can affect the quality of the parts. You can add a mild dish soap to the water - then rinse them with clean water and you're done!

A warning! Do not put your LEGO® pieces in the washing machine or dishwasher, or attempt to dry them in the oven, microwave or hairdryer. If the stones become very hot, they can change shape and then no longer work!

To disinfect your parts or clean electrical LEGO® parts such as cables, motors or battery holders, wipe them clean with household rubbing alcohol. Household rubbing alcohol should only be used by adults.

Compare LEGO® bricks, building plates and DUPLO® bricks

To understand how our designers build such elaborate and detailed sets, let's go back to the humble LEGO® brick. One of the unique features of our stones is that our production teams work very hard to ensure they are super accurate. Every brick must fit exactly with every other part to give our fans the best building experience.

If you want to know more about this, you will find more information about the most famous types and sizes of stones below.

Picture

Get to know the 'picture'. This is one of our smallest pieces... but super useful for detailed models. And if you put three of them together, they are the same size as our regular 1x1 brick. Top tip: If you want to loosen those three later, it is best to do this with an element splitter, because they have a lot of clamping force.

'One-by-two'

Then we have the 1x2. You can find this in almost every LEGO® set (except LEGO® Technic models, which use a different building system). The 1x2 brick is one of our oldest pieces... we've been making them since 1952! If you turn the 1x2 over, you will see that it is designed with a solid tube that provides extra clamping force.

'Two by four'

As you guessed, the 2x4 brick is four times as long as the 1x2.

Over the years, the black 2x4 brick has been part of more than 540 LEGO® sets! With its three hollow inner tubes, it clamps very well on other stones.

DUPLO® bricks

Our DUPLO® bricks are scaled up to be twice the size of normal LEGO® bricks. Research has shown that their larger size makes them perfect for the youngest LEGO® builders. Did you know that you can use DUPLO® and LEGO® bricks interchangeably? Look at this article to see how you can combine them.