“Maintenance starts much before the inauguration ceremony!”
This pearl of wisdom holds for all sorts of natural stone installations, especially for shower stalls. This saying has never been more accurate than in the case of tiled shower stalls. Natural stone or ceramic shower stalls witness a very demanding and delicate atmosphere due to the heavy-duty nature of their usage.
Please understand that the surrounding environment is quite different between the bathroom walls inside the stall and the same walls outside the bathroom. The harsh atmosphere inside a shower stall mandates that your utmost and genuine concern should be to get a correct installation. It is so because you will have to inevitably deal with an expensive failure later on if there is a poorly executed installation.
What Care Do You Need to Take at The Time of Installation?
- Plumbing work, including the shower pan, should be appropriate to the natural stone installation conditions.
- 1. Please monitor the caulk and grout lines now and then. The moment you see any irregularity, you should act immediately to address such issues.
- 2. Never use any cleaner on the stone in a cream or powder form to avoid the loosening of grout.
- 3. Never use a mixture of ammonia and water. It does not work on stone floors. The ammonia will damage the calcite-based stone surfaces and the polished marbles.
- 4. Avoid using any generic alkaline soap film removers on your polished stone shower stall. Examples of such generic removers include X-14 Soap ScumTM, Tilex Soap ScumTM, and the like.
- 5. Avoid using any generic mildew stain removers on your polished stone shower stall. Examples of such generic mildew stain removers include X-14 Mildew Stain RemoverTM, Tilex Mildew Stain RemoverTM, and the like.
- 6. Avoid using harsh disinfectants like LysolTM and the like or any magic self-cleaners like Scrub FreeTM and the like.
Regular Maintenance: Soap Film, Mineral Deposits, and Mildew
Please arrange to clean your shower stall every day. We suggest using popular windshield cleaning tools readily available in the marketplace. For instance, one such device has a squeezing blade on one side and a scrubbing net on the other side.
After everyone in your home has taken a shower, you may follow this simple routine. Spray the shower stall walls and floor with a regular-duty (not heavy-duty) spray cleaner. The cleaner should have an explicit rating as “Fit for Natural Stones.” Scrub with windshield tool swiftly and then squeeze.
Soap Film and Mineral Deposit Remover
After months of use, you might notice a thin soap film that looks and feels like wax. It is more prominent on the lower part of your walls. If you rub your fingertips on the stone surface, it will leave a residue of a whitish tone. Use specialty products expressly formulated to remove soap and mineral deposits on natural stones.
You will need only alkaline products with a specific proportion of chelates to remove mineral deposits and the thin soap film. Other options are not suitable as heavy-duty alkaline stone cleaners will not cut them. pH-neutral cleaners will not even tickle them.
It is difficult to formulate such products because they need to be effective on unwanted deposits by still leaving the stone unaffected. Few such products may be available in the market.
Mildew Remover
If you ever notice some mildew on the grout lines of your shower stall, please arrange to clean the mildew stains with a mildew stain remover product that is rated as safe to use on natural stones.
Toilet Commode Cleaning on A Marble Floor
Never use any liquid toilet cleaners if your bowl is installed on a marble or other natural stone floor. Any potential spillage can make tiny holes in your marble quickly. What is the solution, then?
There is a practical solution available in the form of a powdery cleanser such as Comet. You can clean your bowl with this powder safely. Even if a bit of powder spills on the stone floor, it will not harm because the powdered cleanser needs water to activate and hence safe to use. But you have to be ultra-cautious in rinsing any such spillage and avoid extended accidental exposure.