Shower tray
Where everything that ran down the walls collects, in a material that is usually acrylic or stone resin — and abrasives are excluded from both.
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What this is, what goes wrong with it, and where CleaningHQ can help.
Made from
What tends to go wrong
A hard, chalky calcium carbonate deposit left by hard water. Dissolved by acids, essentially untouched by detergents.
Why it is difficult: Water hardness, Crystallisation, Adhesion and cohesion
A living growth, not a stain. Killing it and removing the staining are two separate jobs, and neither addresses the moisture that caused it.
Why it is difficult: Porous and non-porous surfaces, Moisture control and recurrence, Cleaning, sanitising and disinfecting, Organic load, Surface roughness
- Soap scum· no method established yet
Not scale and not dirt: a metal soap formed when hard water meets true soap. It is the reason a shower screen films over in one house and not another.
Why it is difficult: Insoluble metal soaps, Water hardness, Evaporative deposition, Adhesion and cohesion, Why different surfaces get different dirt
Part of Shower.
In detail
A shower tray receives the soap, the skin oils, the shampoo and the hard-water minerals that ran off everything above it, and it holds them in a textured, non-slip surface designed to be hard to wipe. The material is normally acrylic, stone resin or enamelled steel, and the sanitaryware trade's rules exclude abrasives from acrylic and from enamelled cast iron absolutely — a cream cleanser used to shift the grey film leaves a dulled patch that then holds soil faster than the surface around it, so the second clean is harder than the first. The deposit is a hybrid of soap scum and mineral film, so the effective approach is a surfactant to lift the fatty half and a mild acid for the mineral half, applied separately with a rinse between rather than as one product. The textured floor needs a soft brush rather than a cloth, because a flat wipe rides over the pattern. Two structural points matter more than the cleaning. The waste trap collects hair and is the usual cause of slow drainage and smell, and the sealant joint at the tray edge is where mould establishes and where water gets underneath if it fails.
Related
- Shower tray is made from Acrylic
- Shower tray is commonly affected by Soap scum
- Shower tray is commonly affected by Limescale
- Shower tray is commonly affected by Mould
Hacks and claims involving this
- One spray for the whole bathroom Does not work
Sources for this page
Sources
Care & Cleaning: Toilets or Lavatories Made of Vitreous China
STERLING (Kohler Co.) · Manufacturer documentation
Relied on for: That abrasives are excluded from acrylic and from enamelled cast iron while soft abrasive cleaners may be used on vitreous china. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The care instructions list and the hard-water care tip. Supports the claim as stated.
Last reviewed by a person on .