The How-to Guide For Cleaning Your Bathroom Tapware
Just installed new taps in your bathroom, but are unsure how to maintain them properly?
Cleaning and maintaining your bathroom tapware is crucial for the overall aesthetics and functionality of your bathroom. However, they are often overlooked or placed last in cleaning priorities due to their durable materials.
At Hera Bathware, we prioritise the longevity of your bathroom tapware. This article will provide you with everything you need to keep your taps free from dirt, grime, and mould, ensuring they remain aesthetically pleasing and fully functional for years to come.
Step 1: Organise Your Cleaning Supplies
Before we start scrubbing, let's ensure we have everything we need. The beauty of cleaning bathroom tapware is that you don’t necessarily need to buy expensive items – you can repurpose items already present in your house. Most of the following should suffice:
- Old brush or toothbrush you don’t use
- Microfiber cloth
- Sponge
- Bottle of limescale remover (to get rid of mineral buildup if you have hard water)
- Baking soda
- White vinegar
- Mild soap OR dish soap
- Bucket of warm water
Step 2: Cleaning The Tapware
First, use a damp cloth soaked with warm water to remove any visible dirt, grime, or debris from your tapware.
Next, soak another cloth in a 1:1 ratio of vinegar and water solution and use it to wipe down the entire tapware. Vinegar is a natural way to help buff your metal tapware, often working quicker than most cleaning products while offering minimal damage, owing to its more mild acidity.
After wiping most of the tapware, pay extra attention to every nook and cranny, particularly on the handle and aerators, as these are most susceptible to buildup.
After everything’s wiped down, rinse away any remaining residue with warm water. This should keep the majority of your bathroom tapware in good condition.
However, stubborn stains may still persist even after thorough cleaning. In this case, you can either use a limescale remover (if you have some) or baking soda to tackle them. We’ll go with baking soda in this example, as we aim to maintain a natural approach.
Like white vinegar, it’s a natural way to effectively remove hard water stains and grime buildup from your taps. Here’s a step-by-step guide to cleaning them:
Step 3: Proper Maintenance
While cleaning your tapware may sound like a chore, you’ll only realistically do this a few times per year, depending on how heavily you use your bathroom. To minimise your cleaning frequency, it’s important to maintain proper upkeep.
A great way to reduce this is to regularly wipe down your tapware with a dry microfiber cloth or an old sponge after each use. This will prevent any dirt or debris buildup while simultaneously ensuring water spots or streaks don’t form.
We also recommend regularly checking the aerator on your tapware as they are prone to mould and mildew buildup. To prevent them in the first place, we recommend wiping down wet surfaces after each cleaning, or after each use with a dry cloth or squeegee.
Another great way to prevent mould and mildew buildup is to open up a window or turn on exhaust fans during and after using the bathroom to reduce the humidity in your bathroom.
Lastly, we also suggest that you opt for cleaning materials that offer a more gentle disinfecting agent, rather than heavy-duty and expensive cleaners with a strong chemical compound. These can damage the finishings of your tapware over time, or influence the health and safety of users.
Tapware with Hera Bathware
Keeping your bathroom tapware clean and shiny will not only project a hygienic and aesthetic appearance but also remove any hazardous dirt, mould, and grime.
Whether you’re buffing up a metal-plated tap or carefully cleaning a black tap, this guide may be able to help you establish a cleaning routine with only a few household supplies.
As a leading bathware retailer in Melbourne, it’s our utmost interest to ensure the satisfaction and convenience of our customers. If you have any questions or concerns regarding bathroom tapware (or are in the market to buy one), don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance.
