Hard water coming out of your home faucets can wreak havoc on your glass shower doors and shower enclosures. The dissolved magnesium, calcium, and lime in your water leaves a cloudy residue, that is nearly impossible to remove, on all glass surfaces, including your drinking glasses and dishes. It can also leave rust stains in your bathtubs and toilets, depending on how the minerals in your water react with the pipes leading to your house.
Hard water isn’t a health concern, but it can certainly clog up your plumbing and leave crystallized deposits in your hot water heater. It also can shorten the life of many of your appliances that use water, such as the dishwasher, washing machine and coffee maker.
How can you remove hard water spots from your glass?
Hard water streaks and stains are very difficult to remove, particularly if they aren’t addressed quickly. The stains can actually eat into the surface of your glass leaving permanent marks if you don’t attempt to clean them off quickly. The best natural ways to clean hard water spots off your shower doors is to use a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, lemon juice or even white wine. All of these have proven effective in removing pesky lime scale or hard water spots in your home. Sometimes it takes an even stronger cleaner to remove these stains, such as a commercial spray that is formulated to remove lime or calcium deposits. It is important when using this type of spray that you only get the chemical on the glass you are trying to clean and not on the tiles or stone surrounding your shower because it will damage them.
If the milky deposits on your glass are fresh, you can use a dryer sheet to rub them off. The beauty of the dryer sheet is that it removes the crusty residue without scratching the surface of your glass. Another tried and true method of removing hard water spots off glass is to spray the area down with lemon juice. Then use a soft cloth to apply a mixture of vinegar and baking soda to the top of the lemon juice. Rinse the doors with warm water once you do this and your hard water stains should disappear.
If you don’t want to clean up hard water stains daily or even monthly, there are ways to prevent these stains from happening.
Prevention methods
The top prevention method is to install a whole home water softener, which will remove the dissolved calcium, lime, and magnesium from your water before it ever enters your faucets. Not only will the softer water not clog up your plumbing with deposits like hard water does over time, but you also won’t have to constantly clean hard water residue off your glass shower doors or enclosure. At Kinetico Kwater, we work with both well water and city water when it comes to water softening. We offer free water analysis for any home or business that isn’t sure if they have a hard water problem. Because every home’s water is unique, our water specialists will come out and test your water to determine your water’s specific problems. We will then tailor a solution to fix your water’s specific problem.
Kinetico’s Premier Series Water Softeners work well with both well water and city water. Using kinetic energy, or the energy produced by water moving through the system, these water softeners will exchange sodium ions for the dissolved mineral ions in your water, which softens the water before it comes out of your tap or shower head.
Another way to prevent hard water from sticking to your glass in milky droplets is to wipe the water off your shower doors and shower surround after every use. A squeegee works well for this because it leaves your glass looking sparkly clean and eliminates streaks. For a more permanent fix and for less time spent on cleaning, Kwater recommends a water softener.
To learn more about what a whole home water softener can do for you, give the water specialists at Kwater a call. We have many different options that can fit your space, your particular need, and your budget.
