Your shower should be a place where you can relax after a long day’s work — but if your shower is dirty, it might be hard to let your stresses wash away. Too often, homeowners neglect deep-cleaning their shower; sometimes this is due to the wrong belief that the shower is self-cleaning, but more often, it is because homeowners are succumbing to laziness in one of the most crucial rooms for cleaning. To give you back that sense of calm from cleanliness in your shower, here are four major issues making it dirty and how to combat them quickly and easily.
Clogged Drain
When you step into your shower and feel the water splash around your ankles, you know you have a problem. There are dozens of reasons a shower might not be draining properly, and most of them are easy to overcome. Here are a few steps to take if you are wondering how to unclog a shower drain:
- Remove hair from the grate. It’s gross, but it needs to be done at least once per week. Sometimes, a mat of hair on top of the grate is all that is preventing proper drainage. Plus, by regularly removing hair from the grate, you can prevent it from getting lodged deep in the pipes, where it is much harder to reach.
- Pour boiling water down the drain. This can break up any soap scum or grease that is blocking the pipe. Usually, this method isn’t great on its own, but used in conjunction with other tricks, it can loosen or eliminate blockages.
- Plunge the drain. Suction can shift a blockage enough to allow water to pass, which might carry the blockage away. However, if the blockage is deep, you might not be able to generate enough suction with a plunger alone.
- Pour vinegar and baking soda down the drain. The powerful reaction caused by mixing baking soda and vinegar can dissolve and dislodge a blockage. This is a better option than drain-clearing chemicals, which can erode your pipes, solidify blockages and worse.
- Pull the blockage out. If you can see the blockage, you might be able to reach into the drain with your hand to pull it out. Otherwise, you can use a hook or a snake to reach into the pipe to remove the blockage.
In some cases, none of these solutions will work. That’s because some clogged drains are the direct result of plumbing problems, like an improper grade in the sewage line or dents or bends in pipes. In these cases, you will need to call in the help of a professional plumber.
Hard Water Stains
If you don’t have a water softening system, it’s likely that your home has hard water, or water with a high mineral content. On one hand, many of those minerals are beneficial for your health, but on the other hand, the mineral content can produce ugly stains on sinks and showers, especially when you have glass shower doors or chrome fixtures. Usually, the stains take the form of drips or splashes of chalky white, and they are almost impossible to remove with water alone.
Fortunately, that doesn’t mean you have to invest in a dedicated hard water stain remover. Instead, you can create a solution of one-part vinegar and three-parts water, heat it up and spray it on your stained surfaces. Then, using a soft cloth — not a scrub brush, which will leave permanent scratches — you should wipe the stains away. They’ll still be stubborn, so use some elbow grease.
Soap Scum
Showering without soap is essentially a waste of time and water, but using soap is almost guaranteed to leave your shower covered in a thin layer of scum. Soap scum forms when the minerals in hard water mix with the soap and dirt off your body, and when the water and heat of the shower dissipates, the scum shifts from a gross goo to a hard scale. Over time, scum can mix with mold and mildew to discolor your shower’s surfaces, so the sooner you rid yourself of it, the better.
While almost any shower cleaner should be able to cut through soap scum, you can also make your own using 1 cup vinegar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 2 tablespoons or dish soap. Spray this on affected surfaces and allow the cleaner to soak in for 10 minutes or so — but afterwards, you should be able to rinse the scum away with your showerhead.
Your shower is a place for you to get clean, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a dirty, grimy place. By getting in the habit of performing a few simple cleaning chores in your shower every week, you can ensure your shower remains the relaxing place you need it to be.
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