How can I clean surfaces stained by limescale?

Answer 1

To restore your ceramic tile shower to near perfect condition, you are going to need several things. Get a new scrub brush that has stiff nylon or plastic bristles, a roll of paper towels, a gallon of chlorine bleach, a gallon of white vinegar, a spray bathroom cleaner or ultra mild abrasive cleaner, and your birthday suit. The stains and dirt have taken months to accumulate. Don't think you are going to complete this job in 30 minutes or less. The entire process is going to take place over a period of hours and possibly several days.

The first thing to do is to use the scrub brush to remove as much mildew, dirt, soap film etc. as possible from the tile and grout. Get into the shower and scrub well using lots of water and plenty of cleaner. Rinse often and do whatever is necessary to make the tile surfaces shine like a mirror. Don't worry that the grout is still gray with deeply embedded mildew. We will deal with that shortly.

After this cleaning process, you will probably have some dull stains that won't budge. These are very likely hard water deposits. You will remove those using some paper towels and white vinegar. Saturate some paper towels with the vinegar and place them over the hard water stains. Do this on the floor and any vertical surfaces. The wet paper towels will readily cling to vertical surfaces. Vinegar is a very mild acid and it works slowly but efficiently to dissolve the alkaline water deposits.

Get dressed or put on your robe and go relax for a while. Stop back every hour to make sure the towels are still wet with vinegar. Pull away a towel and scrub the deposits. They may completely wash away. If they do not, pour fresh vinegar on the towels to continue the cleansing chemical reaction. Heavy deposits can take up to eight hours or so to completely melt away. The trick is to keep fresh vinegar on the towels.
Once you have all of the hard water deposits removed, clean the shower again to remove all traces of vinegar. It is now time to attack any residual mildew that has stained the grout. You are going to use the pure chlorine bleach and the remaining paper towels to accomplish this task. Saturate as many towels as necessary and put these in contact with the mildew stained grout. It can take hours and possibly days to bleach out all of the mildew in the grout. Be careful not to splash the chlorine bleach in your eyes or on any fabrics or carpets. It can harm you and it removes color from dyed fabrics.

If you are allergic to chlorine bleach or the chlorine fumes bother you, use oxygen bleach to remove mildew. You use the same techniques as described above, it just might take a little longer. Oxygen bleach is color and fabric safe. It is also excellent for people who have septic systems. Chlorine bleach that escapes from the tub or shower into the drain system can kill beneficial bacteria in the septic tank. Oxygen bleach actually helps this bacteria!

To prevent the staining problem in your shower, it helps to understand mildew. It is an organism that requires food and water to live. Showers and bath areas provide the moisture and you provide the food every time you use soap, shampoo, cream rinse, etc. Even the dirt and oils you wash from your skin and hair are food for mildew. If you minimize or eliminate the food and water, you can eliminate the mildew.

I feel the best way to defeat mildew is to clean the shower every two weeks. Every day after you have showered use a plastic cup to pour clean water down the sides of the tile. Then use a squeegee to quickly wipe down the tiles directing as much water as possible to the shower drain. These two simple steps will remove a huge amount of food and water from the shower each day. When you get ready to leave the bathroom, open the shower curtain or shower door. Keep the bathroom door open as well. You want as much air to circulate in the shower as possible. This will dry all bath surfaces quickly and rob any microscopic mildew spores of water.

20+ years in the Cleaning & Maintenance Business
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Answer 2

try a paste made with white vinegar & bicarbonate of soda. give the tiles a good scrub with an old toothbrush then rinse off. if you live in a hard water area & the limescale build up is bad then you may have to repeat a few times.

Answer 3

Have you tried Vaikal, this is a very good product for removing limescale. Spray on leave for a few min´s then rinse . Work´s very well in the kitchen and bathroom.

Answer 4

Heat White Vinegar to boiling then sponge on the area where you have limescale leave on for several hours or overnight then just rinse with hot water and dry

Or leave a paper towel soaked in White Vinegar on the area for several hours then rinse with hot water and dry the area

Good Luck !

Answer 5

white vinegar, for use on those tough, hard-to-shift stains; its disinfectant properties make it an amazing all-round cleaner. Blitz bath stains with a 1:5 solution of white vinegar and water. Unclog showerheads by first dismantling them and then soaking them for 20 minutes in vinegar.

Answer 6

Vinegar works better than Lime Away. Just pour some in the toilet let it sit for a while then scrub the toilet out and you should be good to go.

Answer 7

Try Cillit Bang, from the advert it just about gets rid of everything.

Have you tried just normal limescale remover liquid?

Answer 8

Limelite is very good. Available from supermarkets and Wilkinsons. I use it all the time

Answer 9

cif bathroom or kitchen spray is good for limescale.

Answer 10

make a paste of white vinegar and bicarb spread it on and leave for a couple hrs