How To Clean Glass Shower Blocks

Shower Glass Block Cleaning Tips

By Troy Cantini

It is important to regularly clean your glass shower blocks to keep soap scum and hard water from forming on them. Keeping up with the soap scum and hard water on a regular basis will save you time and energy in the future and also keep your glass shower blocks from develping a hazy look to them. Hard water and soap scum deposits that are allowed to accumulate can be extremely difficult to remove.

Glass shower blocks can be aesthetically beautiful and provide natural filtered sunlight in an otherwise dark shower.  The beauty of these glass shower blocks comes at a price though. It is important to wipe down and clean the glass shower blocks on a regular basis. Glass shower blocks can be easily scratched and dulled with many types of aggressive scrub pads or abrasive cleaning products.

The glass in glass shower blocks is often times an acrylic product that is softer and more prone to scratching than pure glass.   Scratched and dulled glass shower blocks can look much worse after they have been scratched with these types of abrasive cleaning products. Using a liquid soap can help minimize the soap scum build up on the glass shower blocks. Also if you have extremely hard water it may help to have a water softener set up to minimize the hard water build up in your shower.

If you do not have any stone or acid sensitive tiles in your shower then a mild acidic cleaner can be used to remove the soap scum and hard water deposits from your glass shower blocks.  Most ceramic and porcelain tiles are not sensitive to acidic cleaning products. A gentle acidic cleaner works well to dissolve the soap scum and hard water deposits. You should only use a soft non abrasive scrub pad when cleaning glass shower blocks. It is important not to scratch the glass shower blocks when you are cleaning them. Scratched glass shower blocks will usually look much worse than the original soap scum and hard water deposits.

It is always necessary to first test clean an out of the way glass shower block first.   You should spray some of the acidic cleaner on one of the out of way glass shower blocks and scrub it down with the non-abrasive scrub pad. You should then rinse the excess cleaning products off the glass shower block and completely dry it and inspect it from all different angles with as much light as possible. You want to make sure that no scratches are present from your chosen scrub pad. If your are certain that there are no scratches present then you can go on to clean the entire shower. If you do notice scratching in your test block then you should switch to an even softer type of scrub pad for you cleaning procedure.

If there are acid sensitive stone tiles in your shower then acidic products should not be used in the shower.  You do not want to make unsightly etch marks on your stone tiles when cleaning your shower. Only safe non-acidic soap scum removers should be used for cleaning stone tile showers.

A professional soap scum remover like MB-3 works well to safely remove soap scum and hard water deposits without damaging or etching delicate stone tiles.   You should follow the instructions on the soap scum remover and dilute it per the manufactures instructions. You can then spray it directly on the glass shower blocks and allow it to dwell for 15-30 minutes. Do not allow the soap scum remover to dry on the glass blocks. You may need to continually apply and wipe down the glass shower blocks for the entire dwell time to keep the soap scum remover from drying. You should then use the gentle scrub pad to gently wipe away the soap scum and hard water deposits. You should then completely rinse the excess cleaner and completely dry the glass shower blocks to inspect them.

If you see that the hard water deposits have not been totally removed you may try to use a more aggressive type of scrub pad. You should always test the aggressive scrub pad on out of the way blocks to ensure that they are not being excessively scratched. If you see that your glass shower blocks are becoming scratched with the aggressive scrub pads then you may want to try re cleaning the glass shower blocks with the gentle scrub pads using more scrub time and more dwell time with the cleaning products. In many cases the hard water deposits will not look nearly as bad as scratched shower blocks. You may be forced to live with some difficult to remove hard water deposits.