Bathroom cleaning inspiration and advice very much needed this way...

[Thurlow]

Right - from reading various threads on here along the 'how clean is your house' line, I've come to the conclusion that my bathroom routine is fairly certainly not up to muster. Though for the rest of the house I couldn't give a flying what people think, I appreciate that a manky bathroom us just... manky. I think I need to do something more. So what do nice, clean, tidy people do and how regularly?

We live in a very, very, very hard water area so there's limescale marks everywhere. The toilet is almost beyond redemption with the limescale under the water line, which we're ok with because we know it's not dirt/poo but probably looks horrible to guests. Three Harpic tablets overnight and a good scrub with a brush in the morning barely touches it. I'm not sure what to do with this now...

So at the moment it gets a weekly limescale buster bleach wipe over, but I'll admit it's more of a wipe than a scrub. Ditto the toilet and seat, by the sounds of it a week isn't enough? (Though there're no stains or anything, we appear to be a cleanly house in that respect!) The shower head and cable etc are chrome and have more limescale than they should, really. Wipe down is done while DD is in the bath, then I clean the bath after she's gone to bed.

Sorry, long waffle for not much reason... What I was hoping for was any great tips and suggestions for a) maybe how to blitz the limescale a bit and b) how to clean more regularly, how to make it part of a routine? I should say we both work f/t, different shifts, and so with the childcare we really don't have much time to do deep housework. I am toying with the idea of a professional deep clean to get everything back to square one.

I find that formic acid is a good way to get rid of lime scale.

My toilet in my last house was like that too - best way apparently is to push all the water out past the u-bend, then get some kind of anti-limescale gel or foam type cleaner, cover every bit of it in that and leave for as long as possible, then get some rubber gloves on and scrub it with a hard scourer. Elbow grease + neat chemicals should at least take the top layer off, then repeat in a couple of days until it's gone.

Once the limescale is gone keep using the tablets once a week.

I didn't actually try this (never got around to it) but it seems like it should work.

For shower head, unscrew it, put into a bucket or jug overnight with a denture cleansing tablet (!) and then scrub in the morning/next day.

Then you need to look in the cleaning aisle for a proper anti-limescale cleaning product and use it once a week or so on build up areas.

For the toilet, you can get hydrochloric acid, which goes by some other name here (spirit salts?) Be very careful with it. No bleach in the toilet and handle with care. Push as much water out with brush or plunger first.

Thanks all - where can I get these acids?

Harpic Limescale Remover is really cheap and worked for me.

I pushed the water level down as much as I could last thing at night with a brush and the used A LOT of this stuff all over the bowl.

Within a week it had all completely gone, so it took about 3 bottles all told. Now I just give it a rinse overnight one night a week to keep it sparkly

Don't know what your circumstances are but having a water softener fitted may help. About £900 ish.

Before you go to bed, pop a couple of those tablets into the loo that you use for false teeth (brain hasn't woken up yet) and give it a scrub in the morning. Rinse and repeat the next night till its gone.

I do my loos every day but that might not be normal. I use diluted zoflora and wash the entire toilet.. Including the outside and around the back.. pipework and whatnot. And dry off tobacco polish. Sinks and bath get the same and dried off to a polish. It doesn't take long if you keep on top of it.

I must admit that methods that use pushing the water round the ubend first might be quicker.

*to a not tobacco

Could you stick your dentures in at the same time?!

Well I wouldn't personally

Another vote for Harpic Limescale Remover. Do exactly as MissGarth said. Worked a treat on our toilet. We live in a very hard water area too.

Take shower head off and soak it in white vinegar for half an hour.

Right - I felt inspired and basically ended up chiselling off the limescale last night! I know have a sparkly toilet and will put Harpic Limescale Remover down every week to keep it that was.

Does anyone have any ideas for what I can do for the bath? I'm sure I'm giving the impression here that I live in a hell hole, I really don't - but while I give the bath a wash over with bleach every week, there's still limescale stains on it. Is that just elbow grease or is there anything I can leave to soak overnight? (I have a toddler, if that affects what I can soak the bath in).

Feeling quite inspired by a few of these threads and the house is actually looking ok this week!

Spirit of Salts did the trick in my last house - just be extra care and don't mix with anything else. Or you could try to Harpic limescale removing tabs - might take a week or so to shift but it will go. To maintain use a toilet cleaner with added liemscale remover once a week. I really like the ecover toilet cleaner - seems to work better than the harpic one.

Hard water makes cleaning the bathroom such a pain. I've had some success with the viakal spray and the Ecover limescale remover (works better more more expensive).

I'm trying a 50:50 mix of fairy washing up liquid and distilled vinegar in one of those dish-o-matics to clean the tiles at the mo as it has been raved about elsewhere on the internet. It does work but you need to give it time.
www.thissimplehome.com/2013/05/bathtub-cleaner-dawn-and-vinegar-success.html

Bleach isn't really any good for stuff like that. It's good at killing bugs but pretty rubbish for actual stains and whatnot.

Cillit bang is good but personally I think that stuff takes the lining off your lungs. Maybe a bathroom foam and some elbow grease? (I'm not sure as I've never experienced hard water much)

Yeah, I tend to go for the bleach option as even though it doesn't remove the deep grime, I at least feel I've killed any bugs and given that we don't have a lot of time for cleaning, that makes me feel slightly better! Laziness, really.

I like the idea of white vinegar and washing up liquid, I feel as though I could spray loads on and leave it soak for a few hours without risking putting DD in a big chemically bath later. If it is a plastic bath, can I use a proper scourer (one of those silver ones) or will that cause too much damage?

Lastly, how the hell do you get that plastic seal on the bottom of the shower door clean again?!

(Too many years of rented flats where we moved out before anything got to this stage, damn home ownership... )

What is the tub made of? Ceramic, marble and plastic all have different needs.

Pull the seals off the door and run hot bleach water down them. If they don't come off, you are SOL. If they do come off, but are very bad, you can just replace them.

Vinegar is just a week acid. It's expensive and ineffective compared to products made for the purpose. I like Flash bathroom spray. I'm sure Cillit is as good.

What's 'SOL'? Out of luck?

Is Flash ok then? I honestly hadn't thought about it before and am one of those useless people who never washes clothes before wearing them etc but I keep seeing a lot of mentions about using cleaning products that will be gentle enough for children?

Yup Shit Outa Luck.

Just rinse the surfaces. The products are formulated to rinse away.

Hard water in a damp, mild climate means you gotta use either strong chemicals or a whole lot of elbow grease. I think all that vinegar/lemon halves/bicarb stuff is silly. Sure, they can work ok, but not as well as things formulated for the purpose.

OK, thanks loads everyone. Will just timetable off an evening to scrubbing the bath with a scourer!

Here is an additional link explaining how to remove limescale.

I have no limescale issue in my house, but I would always use vinegar as my go-to-product before any other stuff.

You can buy it cheaply: just head to your nearest Chinese or Indian supermaket. I pay £2.50 for 5 L.

If you heat up the vinegar before applying it (e.g. in your toilet), it helps the cleaning process too.

I clean the bathroom every day with dilute vinegar and dry to a polish. Best way of dealing with hard water in my experience.