Muriatic acid is just an old name for hydrochloric acid. While I wouldn’t want to clean my bathtub with 36% HCl (at least not without thick gloves and a respirator with acid cartridges), the stuff sold as a toilet bowl cleaner is something like 10-23%, depending on manufacturer and formulation. A lower normality, clinging formulation may work better than the liquid formulations. If using HCl, make sure to have thick gloves, some eye protection, have good ventilation, and wear natural fibers. Ideally, do it with the drain closed and neutralize the acid with baking soda before letting it run down the drain, as it’s not good to dump something that acidic into the wastewater stream.
I also like the Comet spray. It melts soap scum. I also use a sponge and soft scrub with bleach to do the walls and floor. Bleach kills any mold.
I have a hand held sprayer with a 7 ft hose. Waterpic? I won’t ever throw cups of water at a shower wall again. It splashes back all over me! Makes a mess and really doesn’t get the tub as clean as the sprayer.
Another trick is to try and clean the bathtub regularly. If you let it go it is so much harder then if you clean it weekly.
Keep a pair of rubber gloves for the chore. These products are hard on the hands.
I never really had a clean bathroom until I tried the power Comet and a stiff grout brush. I mainly wanted to get that red staining in the grout, but it made my tub sparkle too!
Despite my little dissertation on HCl, I forgot to mention that I like powdered Comet and a good brush. Make a thick paste, scrub it on, let it sit, rinse/scrub with water. I’ve also tried sodium borate but find that it doesn’t work very well. I keep thinking of buying some 12.5% sodium hypochlorite solution or some calcium hypochlorite pellets and trying that, but I’m a little afraid that the calcium will scale and I’ll have just replaced one problem with another.
If you have iron in your water and it turns your shower or tub brown, then first clean it with a mixture of equal parts of white vinegar,rubbing alcohol, and distilled or soft water. Spray on let set for a few minuets then rinse off. If the brown is from iron in the water (as it is in this area) then spread some naval Jelly (found in the auto section of a hardare store like Ace) let set for 5 minuets, then rinse before it dries, it will also keep the iron(or rust) from building up for a couple of weeks. Plus, your tile or porceline,tiles or anything it is used on will be clean.I have used it on many different surfaces and it works well. If you used abrasives a lot it can damage some surfaces after awhile, depending on how often you scrub!
If you have iron in your water and it turns your shower or tub brown, then first clean it with a mixture of equal parts of white vinegar,rubbing alcohol, and distilled or soft water(To get rid of scum). Spray on let set for a few minuets then rinse off. If the brown is from iron in the water (as it is in this area) then spread some naval Jelly (found in the auto section of a hardare store like Ace) let set for 5 minuets, then rinse before it dries, it will also keep the iron(or rust) from building up for a couple of weeks. Plus, your tile or porceline,tiles or anything it is used on will be clean.I have used it on many different surfaces and it works well. If you used abrasives a lot it can damage some surfaces after awhile, depending on how often you scrub!
I have one of those automatic shower sprayers. It’s hard to say how well it works since it’s really just me taking a daily shower and my daughter having a bath 2-3 times per week. Having said that, my shower hasn’t been “down on my hands and knees” scrubbed in probably close to a year and it still looks pretty damn clean.
I love the automatic shower sprayers. The best use of them is to *keep *a shower/tub clean, not to clean it when it’s very dirty, but honestly it will work either way. It will simply take a couple of weeks to clean an already dirty tub.
Even on days I don’t shower, I’ll briefly run the shower to get the walls wet (while I’m brushing my teeth) and then hit the automatic cleaner. I like the smell, and it does work best used every day.
Unfortunately, I don’t have “shower walls” as far as automatic cleaners are concerned; just walls covered in some kind of plyboard or whatever, and a shower curtain.
We are on a well and have a lot of iron in our water. I recommend The Works This is serious stuff. It’s hard to find where I live though. You may not find it in a typical grocery store. We get ours at the local building center.
The trick is to NOT wet the shower first. Spray it on, let it soak for twenty minutes or so and reapply.
That reminds me, I need to do this today.
Can the Works be used on any surface? Navel Jelly can.