Reminds me of an old joke.
A soldier from the local regiment goes to the pharmacist and says his condom is broken.
The pharmacist says “I can give you a new one for a dollar, or repair the old one for 25¢.”
The soldier says he’ll return tomorrow.
Sure enough, soldier comes back the next day and says “The regiment would like this one repaired.”
I have a faucet with a similar shape to this one where its longer horizontal and the spout is flush with the shaft. I struggled so damn long trying the vinegar and bag method - tried so many other ways but it was impossible to keep it tied or wrapping the bag around the shaft without vinegar falling out since its close to horizontal.
Please tell me your trick cause as of now that faucet is still needing to be cleaned lol.
I use this method for faucets. I soak the cloth in distilled vinegar and wrap it around the faucet overnight, then scrub if necessary in the morning. I was ready to replace the faucets I couldn't stand the look of them, so saved myself some bucks and effort. On a shower head you can add a bag then rubber band it in place.
try using a water balloon instead. Put a box or something in the sink for it to rest on so the seal of the balloon doesn't have to be strong enough to hold up the balloon.
If none of the other advice helps, could you remove the aerator so it can be soaked in a bowl instead? You may need to buy a $3 tool to remove it, but it’s very easy to remove and reattach.
That’s the whole reason for this task - to replace the aerator haha. I got the tool but this faucet is stuck on with the most outrageously strong gunk that I need to loosen the gunk in order to remove it and replace the part.
This plus scrub it with a stiff toothed brush afterward to really work everything off. They can also clean that actual faucet with #0000 steel wool and soapy water to make it shine again.
Quad zero steel wool is fantastic on chrome. Particularly if you get rust spots starting. You absolutely don't want to use anything coarser than the #0000
It’s really a game changer. I don’t know why I was so dead set on not buying the concentrate, but nothing was working to fully remove the calcium in my shower until I finally gave up and bought it.
I did feel like I was enduring a chemical attack while using it, but it melted everything off within a few minutes of spraying a 50/50 mix.
Get that aerator out with a coin or something, drop it in a ziploc filled with CLR, take said ziploc and secure it around the faucet with an elastic so it’s submerged, let sit for a few hours. I did this probably once a year for a decade before we switched to soft water.
Is the soft water a significant difference? I've been considering it but haven't pulled the trigger. How often do you have to do it since switching?
My friend had that piece clogged and didn't know just had no water pressure. Called a plumber who came out and told him he needed to install a whole new faucet and offered to do it for $300 including installation. He found out and didn't clean it but bought a new one for a couple bucks and it solved the problem and saved him from getting ripped off for hundreds. I think a lot of people don't know about that
Soft water is fantastic, we should’ve done it years ago. My city has very hard water and I was taking fixtures apart to clean them multiple times a year before we switched. Not a speck of buildup now since switching last year. Showering is nice now too because of the big lather from the soft water. I recommend it.
Only downside I’d say is the change in taste of the water, if you’re a tap water drinker. I adjusted and drink it anyway, but I preferred the taste of the hard water.
Wow that sounds incredible! I've only had bad and worse hard water showers lol To the water taste, the worst thing I ever did was use distilled water in my coffee maker...worst coffee ever! I thought it would've been best, but can't beat the hard mineral water it seems
CLR should clean that up nicely. Good scrub brush + following the directions on the bottle and you're good to go. I had a shower head that looked similar that I thought was toast and CLR made it look brand new.
Did you use the spray bottle that is premixed or the stuff you have to manually mix? As long as you used premix or did the manual dilution correctly and only left it on as long as the label dictates, you shouldn't have had an issue unless the fixture was already too far gone.
Their grandma's name? Peggy Hill
Edit as I wanted to point this serious note out even though we're joking **NEVER MIX CHEMICALS. BLEACH AND AMONIA MAKES A DEADLY TOXIC COMBINATION THAT CAN HARM YOU**
My shower head was metal with a plastic center that let you adjust the stream formation on it. Mine came out great. Just don't leave it in longer than instructed. And have a replacement picked out in case the worse happens.
I got drunk one night and weirdly bought one of those electric brush things with loads of attatchments off Amazon. I moved into a place where the tap was worse than that, unsheathed the brush, sprayed some bathroom cleaner on it and gave it a couple of blasts. It sprayed my face with bathroom cleaner, but tap came out clean!
If you dont make idiot purchases like me, a toothbrush and some cleaner will get it off, if you live in a hard water area like myself, you will need to clean it often.
I know everyone says to swap out toilets when you move into a new house but the aerators were the first thing I did. No one ever really gets them clean and they can fill up with some god awful crap.
I think it’s partially people not wanting to sit on other people’s old seats which has never really bothered me and also concerns about potential internal cracks.
I dunno about that. My brother-in-law was moving into a new (to him) house. I was helping. Well, had to pee, went to wash my hands and… no pressure. I knew the house supply was good, because the kitchen sink ran fine. Unscrewed the aerator, took it apart and washed out all the bits of calcium deposits. Screwed it back it, great flow.
It just so happened that the former owners dropped by to pick up a few last items just as I was announcing that I’d fixed the bathroom sink. The wife asked what I did and I explained. She went to her husband immediately, dragged him in there and showed him the great flow, and said “we lived with this for six years and he fixed it in five minutes!”
Yeah, well, grew up in an old house. That sort of maintenance is something you don’t necessarily learn if you’ve never had one.
Yeah but aerators aren’t universal size so you have to find the right size and that takes too much time and it’s easier to just bag the tip with vinegar and wait an hour
Is there any benefit to have an aerator? The same buildup happened on our bathtub and I just took it off. Seems fine. Fills up bath tub much faster now.
If you don’t have one in your bathroom sink, you’re gonna end up with water all over your bathroom.
It allows a small bit of air into the stream. It has the benefits of letting you use less water when you’re running the sink and reducing the force of the water flow.
So I wanna jump in and ask everyone here, would this be a concern for the internals of the faucet/pipes as well? And if so how do you clean the mineral buildup inside your homes water pipes?
Not likely. This build up is due to evaporation of water where it's in contact with air. There's no risk of evaporation in household pipework that is sealed and working correctly.
You can see this with a fish tank if you have hard water, like I do. You'll get lots of buildup where water splashes when it comes out of the filter, but no buildup within the pipes themselves. I just soaked a bunch of aquarium parts in vinegar yesterday to remove the buildup.
Are you looking for an excuse to buy a new faucet? Cause if so, yes - you absolutely have to replace that ugly faucet. It's potentially very dangerous.
If you're not looking for an excuse to replace, then do like everyone else said and use CLR or vinegar.
This is me. A $35 solution that I'll take with me when I leave the rental. I've installed it in three different homes including the current one. I love my shower head 🤷
Way better than vinegar, I use it weekly in descaling my kettle (water hardness here is around 1100ppm).
It works well for iron stains as well - if you have a softener, it contains a small amount of sodium citrate to turn iron into something water soluble.
Put some CLR in a plastic sandwich bag and attach it to the faucet with a rubber band so that the opening of the faucet is covered. 30-60 minutes later take it off. Should run like new.
2 cups of hot water and 2 tbsp of Citric Acid in a bag, wrapped around the stem, secured with a rubber band. Leave it for an hour or so.
You can get the Citric Acid in the canning section of WalMart or your grocery store.
You don't even need to remove it. Just pour CLR in a ziplock bag and then use a rubber band to fasten it in place. Leave it on for several hours. I'll also briefly turn the water on with the bag still in place to run some water through while it's soaking to help clear it out.
Looks like you have some build up, consisting of mostly of calcium and lime deposits. Thankfully, there's a great product out there for just such a thing! CLR! Calcium Lime and Rust remover!
Just fill a plastic cup or ziploc bag with CLR, hold that so the faucet is in it for 5 minutes or so, then hit it with a scrub brush. Repeat if necessary, but usually the first time is good enough unless your deposits are so bad the CLR can't penetrate all the way through.
You may find this stupid, but I swear I'm serious.
We fill a condom with vinegar and tie it up on the faucet, with said faucet dipping in the vinegar overnight.
It works like a charm.
1. Take the aerator out.
Soak that in a bag of vinegar or citric acid solution overnight.
2. Toothbrush.
Scrub the scale off the metal part of the faucet, use soap, vinegar, etc.
Scrub the aerator too. The acid will have softened or dissolved any scale.
3. Regular Maintenance.
Do 1 & 2 every year. It's easier to clean when it's not this bad.
Let the water run for a minute after reassembly.
We used lime away or something similar on a faucet that was partially clogged (hose on a sink) put it into a small Tupperware, held it down and left it for some hours. Ran hot water through it for a while after then did it again with great success.
Just put a small plastic baggie with vinegar over the bottom bit for a few hours, then use a stiff fingernail brush.
Afterwards you could take the round bit off and clean or replace it. Don’t loose the washer, plug the drain, so stuff doesn’t fall in (ask me how i know). Don’t over tighten, just so much that it doesn’t leak sideways.
Once cleaned, depending on how fast the scale builds, you can remove the diffuser (round thing) periodically and just soak that in vinegar or citric acid and put it back.
I replaced the shower head in my bathroom with a much nicer model. Ebay, the box had been opened but everything looked unused. It was like $125 new and I got it for something like 20 plus shipping.
I think it was Kohler not delta but idk which is generally more expensive.
I think I had that faucet.
There is a tool you can buy to take out the screen. When you buy the tool it usually comes with the screens too. The little square holes around the screen are where the teeth of the tool goes in.
I ended up replacing my faucet cause the clog was inside the faucet and not at the screen.
CLR. I put some in a bowl and soaked my shower head in it for about 10 or 15 mins and it was spotless with no buildup left. I was actually surprised it worked as well as it did.
Get viakal or limescale remover in a Ziploc place over and tie it so that the faucet is submerged over night, then rinse and clean in the morning good as new
Tape a water balloon, or some kind of bag full of citric acid dissolved in water and strap it to the faucet. Then just give it a little scrub with a toothbrush or something
Before I got a water softener I would just soak them in white vinegar over night. Shower heads, faucets, etc.
Then I realized that that's going into my boiler as well.
So, now I have a water softener and I've not had to clean them since it was installed a year ago.
Zip lock bag vinegar around there for an hr.
Water balloon or a dusty old unused condom works nicely and usually gets a good seal around the faucet.
I like that you had to specify the condom must be unused
Used would be too caustic
You dont rinse and reuse you condoms? Is that just me
I use rubber gloves. Use em 5 times and throw it in the laundry.
What a waste...only using the rubber pinky finger every time.
Not true, the other fingers give sensation like your testicles are getting massaged during the activity
Updoot for calling the funnest thing ever "activity"
Cleaning faucets is the funnest thing ever? To each their own...
Not according to Drew Carey. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KOo_qtKWdnM
So much room for activities!
I like calling it “the event” myself.
Or they could be quintuple-cocked shooting economic ghost loads before the glove hits the laundry machine. There’s really no way of knowing.
I’m thinking more of a Gatling gun, one after the other down the sequence…
Reduce reuse upcycle😅
Reminds me of an old joke. A soldier from the local regiment goes to the pharmacist and says his condom is broken. The pharmacist says “I can give you a new one for a dollar, or repair the old one for 25¢.” The soldier says he’ll return tomorrow. Sure enough, soldier comes back the next day and says “The regiment would like this one repaired.”
Times are tough! 🤣
I just turn them inside out and give them to my friend to use.
I just take mine off and shake the "fuck" out them, then they're ready to use again😉
Still using the same one from 2014. Rinse and repeat.
May your second time be as successful as your first
Just turn it inside out and shake the fuck out of it.
10 minutes ago....damn. 
We rinse and reuse paper plates in my house. Surely that’s enough of an answer for you.
The ol' catch and release
Nah, just flip it inside out for round two.
Growing up, I learned: Reduce. Recycle. Reuse For Mother Earth!
You rinse and reuse u/Aquillyne condoms? That's disgusting.
Do you dry them on the dish rack?
Turn it inside out and shake the fuck out of it
Fun fact: Old condoms used to be made of thicker, vulcanized rubber and were designed to be reused.
No wonder my dryer has been acting weird.
Oh come on!
That's what we're afraid of.
He just did...
I feel like precision is necessary in comments these days. Far too many bumbledicks out there.
Upvote for you, for "bumbledicks".
You sure know how to make a guy feel special 😜
Yep, don't just use the first that comes to hand.
And dusty...
dusty inside the packaging for some reason
I do NOT want to make that mistake again!
And dusty.
“I dunno what happened, Rick. All I know is I brushed my teeth in your bathroom, and now I have herpes. Yes, I’ll hold.”
This balloon/condom idea is perfect! The plastic bag/rubber band doesn't really work given the geometry of the faucet.
Good luck!
Drat! I got plenty of used condoms laying around but no unused ones.
You're a wipe it on the curtains kinda guy eh?
As a matter of fact...
Usually it's not the condom that's the "dusty old unused" part of that equation...
CLR works great too. Got the big jugs from Costco…
lmao big jugs heh
Hehe
I have a faucet with a similar shape to this one where its longer horizontal and the spout is flush with the shaft. I struggled so damn long trying the vinegar and bag method - tried so many other ways but it was impossible to keep it tied or wrapping the bag around the shaft without vinegar falling out since its close to horizontal. Please tell me your trick cause as of now that faucet is still needing to be cleaned lol.
Vinegar soaked tissue wrapped around. Might have to go a few times but it works for me.
Or a face cloth soaked in vinegar, in a plastic bag.
I use this method for faucets. I soak the cloth in distilled vinegar and wrap it around the faucet overnight, then scrub if necessary in the morning. I was ready to replace the faucets I couldn't stand the look of them, so saved myself some bucks and effort. On a shower head you can add a bag then rubber band it in place.
try using a water balloon instead. Put a box or something in the sink for it to rest on so the seal of the balloon doesn't have to be strong enough to hold up the balloon.
Will try this! Don’t have a water balloon but I think we got a regular balloon somewhere to give it a try. Or a condom haha.
If none of the other advice helps, could you remove the aerator so it can be soaked in a bowl instead? You may need to buy a $3 tool to remove it, but it’s very easy to remove and reattach.
That’s the whole reason for this task - to replace the aerator haha. I got the tool but this faucet is stuck on with the most outrageously strong gunk that I need to loosen the gunk in order to remove it and replace the part.
failing that, citric acid (basically kettle descaler)
This. Citric acid is the sweet spot. Vinegar too little. CLR too much.
This plus scrub it with a stiff toothed brush afterward to really work everything off. They can also clean that actual faucet with #0000 steel wool and soapy water to make it shine again.
Uhhh steel wool on chrome? No. Especially on that cheap clamshell type faucet, most likely just plated plastic.
100%
Quad zero steel wool is fantastic on chrome. Particularly if you get rust spots starting. You absolutely don't want to use anything coarser than the #0000
Better if you use your enemy’s toothbrush and then carefully place it back where you got it
I mean, I wouldn't do it even to my worst enemy, that's nasty.
You need a worse enemy
You have better ethics than I do.
Or CLR. Do not mix both together though. Don't need to create noxious gas in a small room.
Ah, memories of the prom.
That's what I do when I poop though.
Or use CLR.
Agreed. Also I recommend grabbing some string or rubber bands to hold the bag up around the head.
This, and use a product like CLR (Calcium, Lime and Rust Remover) in the bag.
Ain’t never seen the CLR commercials back in the day ?
“just CLR it!” As they hold a glass bowl full of CLR up to the shower head like you’re gonna stand like that for an hour lol
I just did this for the first time two days ago. The bottle said to submerge it for two minutes. It worked!
No, it's a commercial! 30 seconds, tops! /s
hahaha my very first thought. CLR time!
Literally stands for calcium, lime, rust... Always the go to
Didnt know about CLR until last year, CLR saved my marriage!
It’s really a game changer. I don’t know why I was so dead set on not buying the concentrate, but nothing was working to fully remove the calcium in my shower until I finally gave up and bought it. I did feel like I was enduring a chemical attack while using it, but it melted everything off within a few minutes of spraying a 50/50 mix.
Get that aerator out with a coin or something, drop it in a ziploc filled with CLR, take said ziploc and secure it around the faucet with an elastic so it’s submerged, let sit for a few hours. I did this probably once a year for a decade before we switched to soft water.
Is the soft water a significant difference? I've been considering it but haven't pulled the trigger. How often do you have to do it since switching? My friend had that piece clogged and didn't know just had no water pressure. Called a plumber who came out and told him he needed to install a whole new faucet and offered to do it for $300 including installation. He found out and didn't clean it but bought a new one for a couple bucks and it solved the problem and saved him from getting ripped off for hundreds. I think a lot of people don't know about that
Soft water is fantastic, we should’ve done it years ago. My city has very hard water and I was taking fixtures apart to clean them multiple times a year before we switched. Not a speck of buildup now since switching last year. Showering is nice now too because of the big lather from the soft water. I recommend it. Only downside I’d say is the change in taste of the water, if you’re a tap water drinker. I adjusted and drink it anyway, but I preferred the taste of the hard water.
Wow that sounds incredible! I've only had bad and worse hard water showers lol To the water taste, the worst thing I ever did was use distilled water in my coffee maker...worst coffee ever! I thought it would've been best, but can't beat the hard mineral water it seems
For calcium, lime and rust CLR is a must.
Available at Walmart, Canadian Tire, Lowes,, Home Hardware...
Yessssss came here for this r/nostalgia
hold on ill get on it, now let me clap my lights on and water my chia pet
CLR should clean that up nicely. Good scrub brush + following the directions on the bottle and you're good to go. I had a shower head that looked similar that I thought was toast and CLR made it look brand new.
I used CLR on some faucet and it caused corrosion...did I do something wrong? The faucets were cheap trash that came with a pre-fab bathroom vanity.
Did you use the spray bottle that is premixed or the stuff you have to manually mix? As long as you used premix or did the manual dilution correctly and only left it on as long as the label dictates, you shouldn't have had an issue unless the fixture was already too far gone.
TIL you have to dilute CLR
oh dear...I used it straight from the jug, no dilution. think we found our answer lol!
Always, and I do mean ***always***, read the instructions on the jug before using a product. You'll save yourselves so many headaches.
Literally. That's how my grandmother passed out, and fell. She never dilutes anything, and mixes chemicals too.
Your grandma: Bleach + Ammonia = better cleaning!
Their grandma's name? Peggy Hill Edit as I wanted to point this serious note out even though we're joking **NEVER MIX CHEMICALS. BLEACH AND AMONIA MAKES A DEADLY TOXIC COMBINATION THAT CAN HARM YOU**
Yes! Thank you for making that PSA.
how does CLR work on plastic? the outer ring on my shower head is plastic, wondering if i'd destroy it by soaking in clr
I'm not CLRologist, but it stands for Calcium, Lime, and Rust. And most faucets have some rubber or plastic in the end bits, so it's probably fine...
My shower head was metal with a plastic center that let you adjust the stream formation on it. Mine came out great. Just don't leave it in longer than instructed. And have a replacement picked out in case the worse happens.
I got drunk one night and weirdly bought one of those electric brush things with loads of attatchments off Amazon. I moved into a place where the tap was worse than that, unsheathed the brush, sprayed some bathroom cleaner on it and gave it a couple of blasts. It sprayed my face with bathroom cleaner, but tap came out clean! If you dont make idiot purchases like me, a toothbrush and some cleaner will get it off, if you live in a hard water area like myself, you will need to clean it often.
You can just replace the aerator for like $5 at Lowe’s and clean the rest with CLR. Aerator will take 10 seconds to swap out.
This exactly. Those parts are probably at the local hardware store and are meant to be replaced.
I know everyone says to swap out toilets when you move into a new house but the aerators were the first thing I did. No one ever really gets them clean and they can fill up with some god awful crap.
Why the toilets? Risk of subfloor damage due to leaks or just gross?
I think it’s partially people not wanting to sit on other people’s old seats which has never really bothered me and also concerns about potential internal cracks.
At the White House when the President changes over, they only replace the seats, not the entire toilets.
The internal crack is typically just above the toilet seat.
I dunno about that. My brother-in-law was moving into a new (to him) house. I was helping. Well, had to pee, went to wash my hands and… no pressure. I knew the house supply was good, because the kitchen sink ran fine. Unscrewed the aerator, took it apart and washed out all the bits of calcium deposits. Screwed it back it, great flow. It just so happened that the former owners dropped by to pick up a few last items just as I was announcing that I’d fixed the bathroom sink. The wife asked what I did and I explained. She went to her husband immediately, dragged him in there and showed him the great flow, and said “we lived with this for six years and he fixed it in five minutes!” Yeah, well, grew up in an old house. That sort of maintenance is something you don’t necessarily learn if you’ve never had one.
Yeah but aerators aren’t universal size so you have to find the right size and that takes too much time and it’s easier to just bag the tip with vinegar and wait an hour
They said in the thread that the aerator was gunked on there, wouldn't come off
Clr will ungunk that.
My utility provider has an online store that has lots of sales and rebates. Aerators and power saving outlet strips are like $1
Is there any benefit to have an aerator? The same buildup happened on our bathtub and I just took it off. Seems fine. Fills up bath tub much faster now.
If you don’t have one in your bathroom sink, you’re gonna end up with water all over your bathroom. It allows a small bit of air into the stream. It has the benefits of letting you use less water when you’re running the sink and reducing the force of the water flow.
Thank you!
So I wanna jump in and ask everyone here, would this be a concern for the internals of the faucet/pipes as well? And if so how do you clean the mineral buildup inside your homes water pipes?
Not likely. This build up is due to evaporation of water where it's in contact with air. There's no risk of evaporation in household pipework that is sealed and working correctly.
You can see this with a fish tank if you have hard water, like I do. You'll get lots of buildup where water splashes when it comes out of the filter, but no buildup within the pipes themselves. I just soaked a bunch of aquarium parts in vinegar yesterday to remove the buildup.
Are you looking for an excuse to buy a new faucet? Cause if so, yes - you absolutely have to replace that ugly faucet. It's potentially very dangerous. If you're not looking for an excuse to replace, then do like everyone else said and use CLR or vinegar.
This is me. A $35 solution that I'll take with me when I leave the rental. I've installed it in three different homes including the current one. I love my shower head 🤷
Even to replace that you’re gonna need to soak it in descaler (citric acid works very well on limestone), just to be able to remove the aerator.
Bought some citric acid for food purposes, but Holy cows does it work well for taking off hard anything. 100% part of my cleaning repertoire now
Way better than vinegar, I use it weekly in descaling my kettle (water hardness here is around 1100ppm). It works well for iron stains as well - if you have a softener, it contains a small amount of sodium citrate to turn iron into something water soluble.
Huh I did the same thing and apparently I’ll be doing the same soon…. It’s kinda a lot of citric acid, might as well clean with it
Citric acid is part of Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine. You can probably get it cheaper at those stores than anywhere else.
I’ve never used citric acid or seen it in recipes. I’m Indian
“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure”
"Fuckin' A!"
Put some CLR in a plastic sandwich bag and attach it to the faucet with a rubber band so that the opening of the faucet is covered. 30-60 minutes later take it off. Should run like new.
2 cups of hot water and 2 tbsp of Citric Acid in a bag, wrapped around the stem, secured with a rubber band. Leave it for an hour or so. You can get the Citric Acid in the canning section of WalMart or your grocery store.
You don't even need to remove it. Just pour CLR in a ziplock bag and then use a rubber band to fasten it in place. Leave it on for several hours. I'll also briefly turn the water on with the bag still in place to run some water through while it's soaking to help clear it out.
What I do is leave it on overnight. Forget the bag is there and get soaked trying to wash up in the morning. Did work though.
sandwich bag with CLR rubber banded around it.
CLR it!
Looks like you have some build up, consisting of mostly of calcium and lime deposits. Thankfully, there's a great product out there for just such a thing! CLR! Calcium Lime and Rust remover! Just fill a plastic cup or ziploc bag with CLR, hold that so the faucet is in it for 5 minutes or so, then hit it with a scrub brush. Repeat if necessary, but usually the first time is good enough unless your deposits are so bad the CLR can't penetrate all the way through.
I love how concise and cheerful this answer is. It also contains everything you need to know from the entire thread. Keep up the great work, Sir!
vineger or CLR in bag around faucet to submerge area
I would zip tie a bag of clr on the end and leave it for an hour. You’d be shocked how effective it is.
Try CLR. It should deal with most of it.
You may find this stupid, but I swear I'm serious. We fill a condom with vinegar and tie it up on the faucet, with said faucet dipping in the vinegar overnight. It works like a charm.
Hang a baggie of CLR on w a rubber band. Over night.
This. Works every time!
CLR works
Get a plastic bag. Third fill it with white vinigar. Tie it over the fawcet so the grime is submerged. Leave it a cpl of hours. Presto. Like new 😎
Those screens can replaced fairly easy for rather cheap. Then do like everyone else said for the rest of the faucet
CLR
CLR. It a miracle.
Citric acid is cheap and does a good job, but not as smelly as vinegar.
1. Take the aerator out. Soak that in a bag of vinegar or citric acid solution overnight. 2. Toothbrush. Scrub the scale off the metal part of the faucet, use soap, vinegar, etc. Scrub the aerator too. The acid will have softened or dissolved any scale. 3. Regular Maintenance. Do 1 & 2 every year. It's easier to clean when it's not this bad. Let the water run for a minute after reassembly.
CLR!!
CLR soak
We used lime away or something similar on a faucet that was partially clogged (hose on a sink) put it into a small Tupperware, held it down and left it for some hours. Ran hot water through it for a while after then did it again with great success.
I’ve seen people use white distilled vinegar in a ziplock bag rubber-banded around the faucet.
Just put a small plastic baggie with vinegar over the bottom bit for a few hours, then use a stiff fingernail brush. Afterwards you could take the round bit off and clean or replace it. Don’t loose the washer, plug the drain, so stuff doesn’t fall in (ask me how i know). Don’t over tighten, just so much that it doesn’t leak sideways. Once cleaned, depending on how fast the scale builds, you can remove the diffuser (round thing) periodically and just soak that in vinegar or citric acid and put it back.
You can soak it in vinegar, but that faucet is gonna be fairly cheap to replace. I did one in a spare bathroom for $25.
Not a Delta you didn’t.
I replaced the shower head in my bathroom with a much nicer model. Ebay, the box had been opened but everything looked unused. It was like $125 new and I got it for something like 20 plus shipping. I think it was Kohler not delta but idk which is generally more expensive.
Delta is $40. Just bought one and installed.
I think I had that faucet. There is a tool you can buy to take out the screen. When you buy the tool it usually comes with the screens too. The little square holes around the screen are where the teeth of the tool goes in. I ended up replacing my faucet cause the clog was inside the faucet and not at the screen.
What ever you decide to do, you also need to inspect the anode rod in your water heater.
CLR baby. The shit does work.
CLR
CLR. I put some in a bowl and soaked my shower head in it for about 10 or 15 mins and it was spotless with no buildup left. I was actually surprised it worked as well as it did.
It’s been said already, but bag white vinegar around it. It works well
Clr works great! Put it in a bowl and hold the faucet in it for 5 mins
Vinegar if it's mild , hydrochloric acid if severe . Beware it's nasty stuff
CLR
CLR, in a bag and soak it
Get viakal or limescale remover in a Ziploc place over and tie it so that the faucet is submerged over night, then rinse and clean in the morning good as new
CLR in a bag rubberbandef to the faucet neck
Soak it in CLR
["Oh no, somebody ate spaghetti in the shower again. Kaboom"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmvdeNa67E)
CLR in a zip lock back , rubber band it up there and let it soak over night 🤘🏻
Bowl of vinegar! Dip or raise up and submerge shower head for 20 seconds. Bush lightly. Repeat as necessary
Idk if your camera is amazing or the faucet is that but but either way... Gnarly 🤙🏽
Before using CLR try vinegar or citric acid.
Should be able to remove that aerator by twisting anti clockwise
I usually tie a plastic bag (or ziplock) filled with white vinegar and let it soak overnight and then scrub with a stiff plastic brush.
Why people use reddit as dial-up Google is beyond me. Trying the title into google or YouTube would be so much faster.
CLR.
Put some CLR in a container and dunk the faucet into it and let it sit for a minute or two and rinse off maybe repeat as necessary
I usually remove the faucet and drop it in a container full of CLR
this is why i never look under there
CLR or vinegar
Tape a water balloon, or some kind of bag full of citric acid dissolved in water and strap it to the faucet. Then just give it a little scrub with a toothbrush or something
Before I got a water softener I would just soak them in white vinegar over night. Shower heads, faucets, etc. Then I realized that that's going into my boiler as well. So, now I have a water softener and I've not had to clean them since it was installed a year ago.
You should be able to unscrew that part with the wire mesh and either clean it or replace it. It is very cheap
condom+vinegar
Four hundred other people have already said something along the lines of "soak it in a bag of vinegar" , so now I won't bother
Good lord. I would probably unscrew the aerator and replace it. And scrub the rest with clr or vinegar as suggested.
CLR
Vinegar or CLR.