TOILET AND BATHROOM CLEANING
HOW TO CLEAN CERAMIC TILES AND GROUT
Throw out the cistern blocks and the artificial perfumes, you will not need them.Wash down the whole of the toilet, including behind the seat, with a proper hard surface detergent in solution and then rinse it off. Then wipe dry with a half damp cloth, now leave it to dry. Wash the bowl by pouring a splash of the neat detergent in the water, and scrubbing with the toilet brush. Now flush the toilet.
DESCALING A TOILET
You will need to descale a toilet about once a month -urine and hard water is a good combination to make scale - that's the staining around the lip of your bowl and this is the stuff that your bleach treatments and anything else you are using is not removing Acid is the only scale remover which is going to work in areas of hard water. Use phosphoric acid or citric acid for preference. Vinegar and anything else you might have read about will not work. So go and buy a proper descaler from a janitorial supplier and keep it to clean the grout and the taps and the shower head as well. Also use this to clean your shower cubicle.Once your toilet is descaled, all it requires is a daily wash, including a wash around the bowl, as previously shown.
DISINFECTING AND SANITISING -IS IT NECESSARY
No. Toilets do not smell if they are cleaned properly with detergent as we have indicated. Bacterial growth occurs when surface cleaning has not been carried out properly. Surface cleaning will remove almost everything which could cause you problems. Bleaching, and the use of disinfectants will not replace a good clean and descaling because it is the scale and the uncleaned surface soiling which attracts bacteria. So you can try to think you are cleaning when you put a bit of bleach in thebowl, but in fact you are not. Can't beat a good clean. Get those hands wet.
NOTE WELL: never mix an acid descaler with bleach. Keep them very far apart. We have however seen toilets awash with neat bleach, and others with almost neat coal tar disinfectant, but still dirty, and we mean dirty! Bleach removes scale colour but not the scale, and coal tar disinfectant can be poisonous in heavy quantities. The difference from a cleaned toilet to an uncleaned toilet is easy to see. So before you get sanitisers on the brain, clean the area properly first.
TILE GROUT you can clean grout with the same phosphoric acid descaler you used on your toilet. You may need to leave it on the grout for a time to work, like for example overnight, if you have heavy scale build - up and mold stains. Rinse well and leave to dry. Most grout is dirty, because you haven't rinsed your last lot of detergent out from the tile, and you have used dirty washing water.Grout should be left to dry, but needs to be dried quickly. Flooring grout can be dried by a mop or with a pass with a wet/dry vacuum cleaner
NOTE WELL: have you a marble tiled bathroom? - Well do not use any acids on this surface, That is, no vinegar, lemon juice, nor anything else even vaguely acidic. Neither bleach, nor ammonia. To clean grout use a neutral detergent solution but you will need to leave on the surface for a half hour, and rinse off well. You may need to scrub the grout with a brush after treatment to remove any surface soiling left.
MARBLE CLEANING
Marbles, limestone and clay floorings are delicate materials to clean, so treat them as such. You will never ever get a nicer surface, and it will last a lifetime but treat with care and use care when cleaning.Never use any acids - and that includes vinegar, lemon juice, and most grout cleaners. Never use bleach, and take great care on the alkalis. You will find that a low foaming detergent based around d-limonene will clean marble quite effectively.
These surfaces will clean with a very dilute detergent solution - which should not be washing - up liquid. They should be well rinsed after cleaning and left to dry. They can be polished up with a dry cloth if needed, or gently buffed.
What you shouldn't do:
You should never scrub any marble with a scouring pad, especially not a metal scouring pad, the damage will be pure vandalism, because the small pieces from the scouring pad will stick to the marble and rust in situ, so your marble will show sometimes extensive rust staining. This can only be removed by re-polishing, which can be an expensive procedure.Use extra care if the marble is pitted or has lost it's shine - this means it needs repolishing and that is a specialist job. Never be persuaded that an acid etch will clean the marble - it will not, and will damage the marble.
Marble subject to heavy wear should always be impregnated. Use the specialist cleaners and maintainers available from MB Stone.
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