A walk-in tub is not the cheapest of home improvements, so it’s essential to take care of it, so that you don’t need to buy another any time soon.
This brief guide will teach you how to take care of your walk-in tub without too much effort.
If you haven’t got a walk-in tub yet, we’ve got a great list of walk-in tubs and a list of walk-in showers (some with tub combinations) for you to check out.
If you do have a walk-in tub, then the first thing to take care of is daily cleaning.
Daily Cleaning For Your Walk-In Tub
We say “daily” but what we mean here is “after every use”. It’s not hard to do, you just:
- Give the tub and any of the fittings a quick rinse with warm water. This helps to remove any soap or other residues that build up on it.
- To rinse the tub out just use the shower wand on a warm setting, don’t spend any time using a cloth or doing any heavy duty work.
Weekly/Monthly Cleaning For Your Walk-In Tub
Daily cleaning will reduce the need for this kind of cleaning but eventually, soap and body oils will start to stick to the surface of the tub, no matter how often you rinse it.
To prevent this, depending on how much use the tub gets, on a weekly or monthly basis you need to do a little more work:
- Fill your tub with hot water up to the level of the seat.
- Add 3 tablespoons of a low-foam detergent to the water, we recommend dishwasher granules for this.
- Turn the jets on and let them go for about 15 minutes. This gets the detergent working.
- Drain the tub fully.
- Fill it with clean, warm water.
- Run your jets for a further 15 minutes.
- Empty the tub.
See, that was pretty easy, right?
Quarterly Deep Cleaning For Your Walk-In Tub
Then every 2-3 months you want to do a deep clean for your tub this ensures that the heaviest dirt/grime is removed and that everything stays ship shape for longer:
- Put on some rubber gloves and a pair of safety glasses, this will prevent any injuries to you caused by splashing water during the cleaning.
- Fill your tub with hot water up to the level of the seat.
- Add two tablespoons of a low-foam detergent plus half a cup of bleach.
- Now fill the tub with hot water until the water covers the jets.
- Turn on the air jets (and/or water) and let it run for a quarter of an hour.
- Turn off the jets and wait for 5 minutes.
- Turn on the air jets (and/or water) again and let it run for another quarter of an hour.
- Turn off the air jets and then empty the tub (just let it drain).
- Then run your jets and water with clean warm or cold water for another 15 minutes.
And that’s it. That’s as strenuous as it gets when you maintain your walk-in tub. Anyone can do it.
General Tips For Cleaning Your Walk-In Tub
There are also some general tips on cleaning walk-in tubs that can help ensure the life of your tub.
- Walk-in tubs are made of materials that simply cannot tolerate harsh abrasives – never use wire wool, metal scrapers, abrasive cleaning agents, etc. on them. You will only scratch the surface and leave it looking dull and damaged.
- The best detergent for use in cleaning a walk-in-tub is a low-foam detergent. Dishwasher detergent is ideal for this. You can also use a bathtub cleaner such as Soft Scrub for this.
- If you scratch your walk-in-tub all is not lost. You can help to restore the surface by taking an automotive cleaning agent and rubbing it into the damaged area.
- Under no circumstances switch the jets on in a dry tub, this will damage the motors that power them.
Final Thoughts On Caring For Your Walk-In-Tub
Cleaning a walk-in tub doesn’t have to be a major trial. In fact, as you can see it’s pretty easy to learn how to take care of your walk-in tub and to carry out the cleaning.
Just keep it simple and follow these instructions and your walk-in tub will last for a very long time, indeed.
If you need to raise funds to purchase a walk-in tub then you might enjoy our article on the best paid retirement jobs.