Latest / USA Cabinet Store Remodeling Podcast / Your Shower Glass Might Not Be Dirty. It Might Be Damaged.

Transcript

Your Shower Glass Might Not Be Dirty. It Might Be Damaged. · USA Cabinet Store Remodeling Podcast

• 0:05
  Welcome back to the Remodel Report from USA Cabinet
• 0:08
  Store. I am Chris and today we are doing an episode
• 0:11
  I've wanted to do for a long time, because I
• 0:13
  think most of the advice out there on this topic
• 0:15
  is quietly wrong. Jessica, we are talking about
• 0:19
  cloudy shower glass. We are. And I want to open
• 0:23
  with something that is going to sound harsh.
• 0:25
  If you have been scrubbing your shower door for
• 0:27
  a year and it still looks foggy, There is a real
• 0:30
  chance you have been solving the wrong problem
• 0:31
  the entire time. Okay, unpack that. So everybody
• 0:36
  treats cloudy glass as one thing. Dirty glass.
• 0:39
  Buy a cleaner, scrub harder, repeat. But it is
• 0:43
  actually two completely separate conditions that
• 0:46
  happen to look identical to the eye. One of them
• 0:49
  cleans off in 15 minutes. The other one cannot
• 0:52
  be cleaned at all. Ever. By any product. And
• 0:56
  people cannot tell which one they have. Nobody
• 0:59
  tells them how. That is the gap. So let us fix
• 1:02
  it right now because the test takes about 60
• 1:05
  seconds. Go. Test one. Dry your fingertips and
• 1:10
  run them across the hazy part of the glass. If
• 1:12
  it feels rough, chalky, gritty, anything with
• 1:15
  texture, good news. That is mineral deposits
• 1:18
  sitting on top of the glass. Totally fixable.
• 1:21
  And if it feels smooth? If it feels perfectly
• 1:24
  smooth, like new glass, but your eyes are still
• 1:27
  telling you it is foggy, that is the bad one.
• 1:30
  That is etching. The cloudiness is coming from
• 1:33
  inside the surface, not off it. Is there a second
• 1:36
  test to confirm? Yes, and this one is really
• 1:40
  satisfying. Clean a small patch properly, dry
• 1:43
  it completely, then mist it with plain water
• 1:45
  and watch what happens. If the haze vanishes
• 1:48
  the second it gets wet and then comes right back
• 1:50
  as it dries, that is etching. Every time. Why
• 1:55
  does that work? Because etched glass is full
• 1:57
  of microscopic pits. Those pits scatter light,
• 2:01
  and scattered light is what your eye reads as
• 2:03
  cloudy. When you wet the surface, the water fills
• 2:06
  the pits and matches the refractive index of
• 2:09
  the glass, so light passes straight through for
• 2:11
  a moment. Then the water evaporates and the haze
• 2:14
  is back. That is a genuinely useful trick. Okay,
• 2:18
  so let us talk about how glass even gets to that
• 2:21
  point. Because I think most people assume glass
• 2:24
  is just, you know, inert. Right. And it is not.
• 2:29
  Not even close. Shower glass is a sodium silicate
• 2:32
  and the surface is microscopically porous. It
• 2:35
  has tiny peaks and valleys. And more importantly,
• 2:39
  it chemically reacts with water. Glass reacts
• 2:42
  with water. Continuously. So here is what actually
• 2:46
  happens. In two stages. Stage one is the boring
• 2:49
  one. Your tap water carries dissolved calcium
• 2:53
  and magnesium. Droplet lands on the door. Water
• 2:57
  evaporates. Minerals stay behind. Do that a few
• 3:01
  thousand times and you get the white haze. And
• 3:04
  soap makes it worse. Soap makes it much worse,
• 3:07
  and in a way people do not expect. Bar soap is
• 3:10
  built on fatty acid salts. When that hits the
• 3:14
  calcium in hard water, it chemically converts
• 3:16
  into calcium stearate, which is a waxy, insoluble,
• 3:20
  extremely sticky solid. That is soap scum. It
• 3:25
  is not loose dirt. It is a new compound that
• 3:28
  formed on your glass. So it is not sitting there.
• 3:31
  It is bonded there. And it traps water and minerals
• 3:34
  underneath itself, which sets up stage two. Trapped
• 3:38
  water starts pulling sodium out of the glass.
• 3:41
  The sodium migrates into the droplet. And as
• 3:44
  it does, that droplet turns alkaline. Once its
• 3:48
  local pH goes past 9 .0, It starts breaking the
• 3:52
  silicon -oxygen bonds that hold the glass together.
• 3:55
  So the water is literally dissolving the glass?
• 3:58
  Slowly, but yes. And the pitting that leaves
• 4:00
  behind is permanent. The restoration industry
• 4:04
  actually calls it shower glass cancer, which
• 4:07
  sounds dramatic. But the point stands. You cannot
• 4:10
  wash away a hole. Here's something I want to
• 4:13
  ask about, because you mentioned it to me before
• 4:15
  we recorded, and it completely flipped my thinking.
• 4:18
  You said a heavily fogged shower door. can be
• 4:20
  in better shape than a lightly misted one. It
• 4:24
  is counterintuitive, but it is real. If you get
• 4:27
  heavy condensation, the droplets get big and
• 4:29
  they run down the glass. Running water carries
• 4:32
  the leached sodium down the drain with it, but
• 4:35
  a thin, static film of moisture just sits there.
• 4:39
  The pH climbs, the attack proceeds, and nothing
• 4:42
  washes it away. So, the guest bathroom nobody
• 4:45
  uses. can be in worse condition than the shower
• 4:48
  you use twice a day in squeegee. I have seen
• 4:51
  it. Okay, let us get practical. Somebody has
• 4:55
  stage one, the fixable kind. What do they actually
• 4:57
  do? So first thing to understand is that soap
• 5:00
  scum and mineral scale need opposite chemistry.
• 5:04
  Soap scum is fatty, so you need a surfactant.
• 5:07
  Dish soap, basically. Mineral scale is alkaline
• 5:11
  crystal, so you need acid. That is why vinegar
• 5:14
  plus dish soap became the standard internet answer.
• 5:17
  It is genuinely a sound combination. But people
• 5:21
  say it does not work for them. And here is why.
• 5:24
  And this is the most important thing in this
• 5:26
  whole episode. Shower doors are vertical. Ha,
• 5:30
  okay. No, seriously. You spray your vinegar and
• 5:34
  gravity pulls it to the floor in about 90 seconds.
• 5:37
  That acid needs 15 minutes of contact time to
• 5:40
  break down a mineral crust. It is getting one
• 5:42
  and a half. So people conclude vinegar does not
• 5:45
  work, when what actually happened is the vinegar
• 5:48
  never got a chance. So how do the pros solve
• 5:51
  that? Three ways, and any of them beats buying
• 5:54
  a stronger product. First, the paper towel compress.
• 5:59
  Soak paper towels in vinegar and press them flat
• 6:01
  against the glass so they stick to it. Rewet
• 6:04
  them every 15 or 20 minutes. For a really neglected
• 6:07
  door, keep that going for an hour. That is going
• 6:10
  to look absurd. It looks completely absurd and
• 6:13
  it works better than anything you can buy. Second
• 6:16
  option, spray your deskiller heavily and then
• 6:19
  press cling film over the whole panel. Evaporation
• 6:23
  stops dead. The chemical just digests the scale
• 6:25
  for an hour while you go do something else. And
• 6:28
  the third? Thicken it. A pinch of xanthan gum
• 6:32
  turns vinegar into a gel that clings. Which,
• 6:35
  by the way, is exactly what the expensive gel
• 6:37
  descalers are doing. You are paying for thickener.
• 6:41
  Let me ask about the products people actually
• 6:43
  reach for, because I know our listeners have
• 6:45
  a cabinet full. Bar Keepers Friend. Works, with
• 6:49
  one rule that almost nobody follows. Bar Keepers
• 6:52
  Friend is oxalic acid plus a mild abrasive. Their
• 6:56
  own directions say to rinse thoroughly within
• 6:58
  a minute of application, and warn you not to
• 7:01
  let it sit longer or rub harder than necessary.
• 7:04
  So it is on a timer. Basically. And do not use
• 7:08
  it on coated glass at all. because the abrasives
• 7:11
  strip the coating. Sealer? Strong, effective
• 7:15
  on heavy scale, and it will not hurt plain glass.
• 7:19
  The problem is everything around the glass. It
• 7:22
  is corrosive to metal frames, tracks, and hardware
• 7:24
  finishes. So keep it on the glass, off the trim,
• 7:29
  and rinse well. Magic eraser. People need to
• 7:32
  understand what a magic eraser is. It is not
• 7:35
  a chemical cleaner. Melamine foam is an abrasive.
• 7:38
  It behaves like extremely fine sandpaper. Use
• 7:42
  it soaking wet with light pressure, never dry,
• 7:45
  and never on coated glass. Steel wool. I know
• 7:49
  people are going to yell about this one. Only
• 7:51
  the 0000 grade, and only absolutely saturated.
• 7:56
  Anything coarse or scratches glass permanently.
• 7:59
  And a detail people miss, steel wool rusts almost
• 8:02
  instantly when it touches acid, so you have to
• 8:05
  rinse fast. Okay. Now I want you to do the one
• 8:08
  that is going to upset people. Baking soda and
• 8:11
  vinegar. Yes, let us do it. Every cleaning article
• 8:15
  on the internet tells you to mix baking soda
• 8:17
  and vinegar, and they point at the fizzing as
• 8:20
  proof it is working. And it is not. The fizzing
• 8:23
  is proof of the opposite. Baking soda is a base.
• 8:27
  Vinegar is an acid. When you combine them, they
• 8:30
  neutralize each other. The fizz is carbon dioxide
• 8:33
  leaving. What you are left with is salt water
• 8:36
  and a mild abrasive slurry. So you destroyed
• 8:39
  the thing that was going to do the work. You
• 8:42
  took a perfectly good acid that was about to
• 8:44
  dissolve your lime scale, and you turned it off.
• 8:47
  If you want abrasion, use baking soda by itself.
• 8:51
  If you want to dissolve minerals, use the acid
• 8:53
  by itself. Mixing them gets you the weaker half
• 8:56
  of both. That is going to annoy a lot of people.
• 9:00
  It is chemistry. I am not making it up. What
• 9:03
  about hydrogen peroxide? That one shows up constantly.
• 9:06
  And this is a good example of why you should
• 9:08
  read what your door manufacturer says. Delta
• 9:11
  Shower Doors publishes a Do Not Use List, and
• 9:15
  hydrogen peroxide is on it because it corrodes
• 9:18
  metal even at low concentrations. Their list
• 9:21
  also includes acetone, toluene, lye, and a couple
• 9:25
  of others. And several of those dissolve the
• 9:28
  silicone that keeps water inside your shower
• 9:30
  instead of inside your floor. That is a real
• 9:32
  consequence. Using the wrong product can also
• 9:35
  void your warranty, which people find out at
• 9:37
  the worst possible moment. Let us do two warnings
• 9:40
  before we wrap the cleaning side. Safety first.
• 9:44
  Never mix bleach with vinegar or with any acid.
• 9:47
  That reaction releases chlorine gas. Bleach and
• 9:50
  ammonia gives you chloramine gas. Both cause
• 9:53
  serious respiratory injury. The CDC documents
• 9:57
  this. If you have used bleach in the shower,
• 10:00
  Rinse everything and ventilate before any acid
• 10:02
  goes near it. And the second warning. Natural
• 10:06
  stone. Vinegar is fine on glass. It is not fine
• 10:10
  on marble, limestone or travertine. And this
• 10:13
  caveat gets left out of almost every article.
• 10:17
  Acid etches calcareous stone and it breaks down
• 10:20
  the sealer. The Natural Stone Institute is very
• 10:23
  direct about it. And a lot of showers now have
• 10:26
  stone in them. That is the thing. Design has
• 10:29
  moved toward natural materials, honed finishes,
• 10:32
  biophilic textures, so a travertine bench or
• 10:35
  a marble curb is common now, and your vinegar
• 10:38
  overspray is landing on all of it. Wet the stone
• 10:41
  first, apply acid to a cloth instead of spraying,
• 10:44
  and rinse the stone immediately. Alright, the
• 10:47
  question I get asked more than any other, how
• 10:49
  do hotels keep their shower glass looking like
• 10:51
  that? No secret product. Three structural things.
• 10:57
  One, The glass gets squeegeed and buffed dry
• 10:59
  after literally every use. Water never sits long
• 11:03
  enough to leave anything behind. Two, a lot of
• 11:07
  properties run building wide water softening,
• 11:10
  so calcium and magnesium get swapped for sodium,
• 11:13
  and sodium salts stay water -soluble instead
• 11:15
  of forming that concrete -like scale. Three,
• 11:19
  commercial enclosures often get a hydrophobic
• 11:22
  coating specified at install. And a homeowner
• 11:25
  can do all three. A squeegee is $8, a coating
• 11:28
  is not much more. And if your water is genuinely
• 11:31
  hard, a softener treats the cause instead of
• 11:34
  the symptom. Speaking of coatings, walk me through
• 11:37
  those, because I think people get confused. There
• 11:41
  are two totally different technologies with the
• 11:43
  same nickname. Factory inorganic coatings, like
• 11:47
  Guardian Shower Guard, seal the glass through
• 11:49
  a patented ion beam process during manufacturing.
• 11:53
  Because it is inorganic, Guardian calls it permanent
• 11:56
  and says it never needs reapplying. It prevents
• 11:58
  the reaction from starting at all. Guardian also
• 12:02
  rules out abrasive cleaners on it and says aftermarket
• 12:05
  coatings are not necessary or recommended on
• 12:07
  shower guard glass. So Rainix over shower guard
• 12:10
  is wasted money? Pretty much. Guardian says it
• 12:14
  is unlikely to damage the glass. They just will
• 12:17
  not guarantee it bonds or performs. Then you
• 12:19
  have aftermarket saline coatings. Enduro Shield,
• 12:23
  Diamond Fusion, and consumer products like Rain
• 12:26
  -X. Those bond to the hydroxyl groups on the
• 12:29
  glass and fill in the porosity. So water beads
• 12:32
  and runs off instead of sheeting and evaporating
• 12:34
  in place. Enduro Shield says these can cut cleaning
• 12:38
  time by up to 90%. How do you know if you have
• 12:41
  a coating? Rinse a clean panel and watch the
• 12:44
  water. Tight beads rolling off means the coating
• 12:47
  is intact. Water spreading into a flat sheet
• 12:50
  means either you have no coating or it has worn
• 12:52
  away. Okay, last section, and this is the one
• 12:55
  I think our listeners actually need. Somebody
• 12:58
  runs your test, gets the smooth but hazy result.
• 13:00
  What now? Then we are honest with them, which
• 13:03
  is more than a lot of people in this industry
• 13:05
  do. No cleaner is going to help. Continuing to
• 13:09
  scrub only adds scratches on top of the etching,
• 13:12
  and micro scratches are harder to polish out
• 13:14
  than mineral pitting. So the options are... Professional
• 13:18
  polishing or replacement. Polishing uses carium
• 13:22
  oxide, a rare earth compound that supplier data
• 13:25
  sheets put at about 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale.
• 13:29
  That is right around the glass itself, and that
• 13:31
  is the whole point. Aluminium oxide is far harder.
• 13:35
  Corundum defines 9 on the Mohs scale, which is
• 13:38
  why it stays away from finished glass. Cut too
• 13:41
  aggressively and you have traded chemical hazing
• 13:44
  for mechanical hazing. Can somebody do that themselves?
• 13:48
  Really, no. It needs a rotary or dual action
• 13:51
  machine at 1200 to 1500 RPM with a felt pad,
• 13:55
  worked in small sections with constant temperature
• 13:58
  monitoring. Get the glass too hot and thermal
• 14:00
  expansion can shatter a tempered panel while
• 14:03
  you are standing in front of it. And hand polishing
• 14:06
  does not generate enough heat to trigger the
• 14:08
  reaction, so it just does not work. Is there
• 14:11
  a catch even when it does work? There is one
• 14:13
  people should know before they pay for it. Polishing
• 14:17
  strips the protective layer and exposes fresh,
• 14:19
  highly porous silica underneath. Unsealed, restored
• 14:23
  glass degrades faster than new glass, so sealing
• 14:26
  afterward is not optional. It is part of the
• 14:29
  job. Which brings us to when replacement is just
• 14:31
  the better call. Often it is. Polishing plus
• 14:35
  sealing a multi -panel enclosure can approach
• 14:38
  the cost of new glass. And new glass can be specified
• 14:41
  with a factory coating so the whole cycle does
• 14:43
  not restart. The signals we tell people to watch
• 14:47
  for are haze that survives a full acid treatment
• 14:50
  and feels smooth, visible scratches from earlier
• 14:53
  attempts, rusted or seized tracks, and water
• 14:56
  escaping the enclosure. And sometimes it is not
• 14:59
  the glass at all. Sometimes it is the frame.
• 15:02
  Framed sliders have channels and overlaps in
• 15:04
  a bottom track that hold water by design. Frameless
• 15:08
  panels have far fewer places for buildup to hide.
• 15:11
  So if you have never liked cleaning your shower,
• 15:14
  and you were thinking about updating the bathroom
• 15:15
  anyway, that is worth factoring in. All right,
• 15:19
  give me the closing summary. If somebody only
• 15:21
  remembers three things. One, diagnose before
• 15:24
  you buy anything. Touch it, wet it, 60 seconds.
• 15:29
  Two. Dwell time beats scrubbing every single
• 15:33
  time, so use the paper towel or the plastic wrap
• 15:35
  trick instead of a stronger chemical. 3. Squeegee
• 15:39
  after every shower and switch from bar soap to
• 15:41
  liquid body wash. Those two habits prevent most
• 15:45
  of what we talked about today. 30 seconds a day
• 15:48
  instead of three hours a year. That is the trade.
• 15:51
  If your glass has crossed the line and you want
• 15:53
  somebody to look at it honestly, USA Cabinet
• 15:56
  Store has 14 showrooms across Virginia, Maryland,
• 15:59
  North Carolina, Texas, New Jersey, Florida, and
• 16:02
  Tennessee. Consultations are free, and they will
• 16:05
  tell you if cleaning is still an option. There
• 16:08
  is a full written version of everything Jessica
• 16:10
  covered today on the USA Cabinet Store blog,
• 16:13
  including the product comparison table. Which
• 16:15
  you should save before you reach under the sink
• 16:17
  again. Thanks for listening to the Remodel Report.
• 16:20
  See you next time.