Cleaning is a game of mysteries. As soon as you think you’ve cleaned that glass cup or that living room window, random water stains surface and will remain if not properly removed. Though these stains do not suggest filth, once you’ve noticed them, you can’t get these visual soars out of your mind, and frankly —neither can we. It’s time to clean with peace of mind by reading on about how to remove hard water stains below.
How Hard Water Stains Form
Water stains are actually more than a product of nightmarishly futile attempts at spotless cleaning. The water we use to clean—and sometimes drink contains minerals like calcium. But once a puddle or droplet water evaporates, a seemingly irremovable, alkaline-based residue remains. Because these water stains are mostly alkaline-based, it is common practice to remove them with strong acidic solutions.
White Vinegar and Lemon
Lemon and vinegar are two natural acids that are tough to compete with when mixed. This hefty combination when diluted with 1 part water, will assuredly do damage to any hard water stain in its way. You may be hesitant to clean anything with white vinegar considering its pungent smell. Smelly—yes—but the powerful and natural properties of white vinegar are unmatched when a grimy mess arises. Luckily, the added lemon should help tone down and even mask the less-than-pleasing aroma of white vinegar.
Salt and Baking Soda
A white vinegar and lemon mixture is a powerful deterrent, but it may have a difficult time cutting through larger and older hard water deposits. This is where the combo of baking soda and salt comes in to play. Yielding similar results when cleaning silverware, mixing salt and baking soda will make any glass—or any smooth surface for that matter—sparkle again. Though this homemade cleaning agent is a heavy alkaline-based solution, its course texture for scrubbing will cause hard water stains to dissolve into oblivion.
What Actually Works
There is no SINGLE solution to removing hard water stains. Because different hard water stains leave behind different mineral deposits, removing these suckers may need a trial-and-error approach. Needless to say, our cleaning gurus at 3 Maids believe a combination of the aforementioned methods is a near full-proof way of eliminating hard water stains.
First, scrub your hard water-covered surface with the course baking soda and salt mixture and let sit. Then, take your heavily acidic solution of lemon and white vinegar and spray away. Scrub down the surface for any remaining spots, then rinse. While the cleaning solutions you use are important to removing hard water stains, wiping your surface completely dry of any moisture is most vital.
If all of this chemistry and scrubbing sounds too tedious, give LA’s most reliable and thorough cleaning service, 3 Maids a call to clean your hard water-covered shower door, today.
