We have pretty hard water here with calcium buildup and our showerheads are startng to show decreased flow.

I used CLR per instructions, soaked for a few minutes and rinsed but that did not seem to help very much.

Is there something better or should I give a long soak to the shower heads. The shower heads are plastic and some type of rubber for the nozzles. They were expensive and I do not want them damages during the process.

Thanks in advance.

I just used vinegar on the sink yesterday. Just a little soak and a toothbrush cleaned it up good.

White? Pure or a solution?

And this is a built up a little bit.

Try pouring the CLR into the shower head while the head is sitting in a bowl. Let it soak an hour or more.

CLR seems more acidic than white vinegar is. I have heated vinegar in a bowl in the microwave to increase its effectiveness.

I generally figure that soaking a shower head until it cleans up thoroughly is worthwhile. If it got damaged it wouldn't matter that much because I never clean them before they're essentially ruined by mineral buildup anyway. I don't recall ever hurting a plastic one.

A "few minutes?" Try at least 20, up to 8 hours of soaking. A CLR-wetted rag, wrapped around a lime-encrusted plumbing part overnight can work wonders.

Vinegar is a dilute solution of acetic acid the hard water ,a calcium salt is a base, so you mix vinegar with the hard water salts and you get a acid /base reaction. You might need to let it soak a bit and maybe more than once with fresh solution.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
A "few minutes?" Try at least 20, up to 8 hours of soaking. A CLR-wetted rag, wrapped around a lime-encrusted plumbing part overnight can work wonders.

This. It's not instant.
I fill a ziplock baggie 1/2 full, then zip tie it so the shower head is soaking in the CLR.

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
A "few minutes?" Try at least 20, up to 8 hours of soaking. A CLR-wetted rag, wrapped around a lime-encrusted plumbing part overnight can work wonders.

This. It's not instant.
I fill a ziplock baggie 1/2 full, then zip tie it so the shower head is soaking in the CLR.

This! Pour it in a bag, rubber band the bag around the shower head and let it soak overnight. Then run water through it and you should be good to go.

Sulfamic acid dissolved in water. Used for cleaning hard water deposits in distillers. Lowe's used to sell it as a special order. Haven't looked for it for years as I still have a couple 4lb containers remaining.

Heat up some vinegar in a tea kettle.
Soak it or brush it.

As others have said-vinegar. I use a glass jar sized as closely as possible to the part and fill it with vinegar. Let it soak over night. Vinegar is relatively cheap and doesn't hurt anything when poured down the drain. We lightly wrap our sink fixtures with paper towels and soak them in vinegar repeatedly to remove lime stains. I use a plastic ketchup; type squeeze bottle to apply which minimizes waste and is handy.

I seem to have better results with lime away. Soak said fixture in full strength solution. It doesn't seem to harm intact, quality chrome. It would probably tarnish chrome coated plastic.

There was this powdered CLR we used to get from a local lumber yard that worked like a champ. I'd use it to treat the plastic holder for our whole-house water filter and it'd be as crystal-clear as the day it was installed in no time.

Of course I never bothered to take note of what the stuff was and that lumber yard has been replaced by Yet Another Gigantic CVS Pharmacy

It was probably too powerful and taken off the market to protect people from themselves.

CLR is a gimmick that does not work.

Lime Away works.

CLR needs time to work. With shower head, I take it off the hose and lay it nozzle down in a tupperware type plastic lid that is deep enough to cover the openings.
After about 6 hours or so, then take an old plastic bristle brush to the nozzles.
(an toothbrush is too soft, I use a stiffer parts cleaning/gun brush)

I like the idea of the ziplock bag but it sounds like it would use a lot of product.

quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
CLR is a gimmick that does not work.

Lime Away works.

Not really.

It works pretty well, it's just not instantaneous.

A couple hours soak is what's needed. The commercial showing the gunk magically dissolving away as soon as it touches it is BS.

Being a plumber, I get asked this all the time. My best offer that people really like is white vinegar in a baggie, zip tied around the showerhead overnight.

If that doesn't work, you may have a plugged filter screen in the showerhead. This requires removal of the showerhead to clean the screen. Good luck!!

Remove the shower head. Put in a bowl that is deeper than the head. Fill with white vinegar. Soak overnight.

Do not use vinegar on a non chrome metal showerhead. It will lift the clear coat and trash the finish in just a few minutes.

quote:

Not really.

It works pretty well, it's just not instantaneous.

A couple hours soak is what's needed. The commercial showing the gunk magically dissolving away as soon as it touches it is BS.

It isn't BS for Lime Away.

Lime Away will knock it all loose in 20 minutes or less.

And here it was I thought I was the old bull.