Beautifully honed stone is one of the best ways to elevate the look of your home. It’s a clean, classic look that fits perfectly in the modern home. Stone showers, in particular, remain one of the best and most practical applications for natural stone. Whether you go with a roughhewn texture or even a glossy sheen, a stone shower adds class and maturity to your bathroom while requiring very little from you. In fact, as long as you’re using the right cleaning products for the type of stone used in your bathroom and keeping it dry in between uses, it is no more difficult to clean a natural stone shower than any other kind.
Knowing Your Materials
The first step to knowing how to clean a natural stone shower is straightforward. The most common pitfall people fall into with stone is treating it like any other surface. Will stone, you can’t just reach under your kitchen sink and use whatever cleaning product comes out. The products you normally use are almost certainly too harsh for natural stone and could do irreparable damage.
On top of that, not all stone is the same. Everything from granite to slate has different chemical and physical properties that will make your cleaning products react differently. As a result, it’s really important that you know what kind of stone you’re dealing with, so make sure you know exactly what kind of stone is being used when it is initially installed.
The type of stone will determine how mild of a detergent you should use. And how often you should seal the surface. Something like granite may be highly durable but is also quite porous. To protect the surface of the stone and prevent damage over time, many stone surfaces have to be sealed at least once a year.
When You Have No Idea
If you are uncertain of what stone you have in your shower, it is better to be safe than sorry. Opt for cleaners that are designed for natural stone. These are usually non-acidic to avoid damaging the surface of the stone. You should also use a soft cloth rather than an abrasive cleaning instrument. As long as you’re cleaning your bathroom regularly, you will be able to easily clean your shower, and you’ll avoid damaging the stone that makes it so beautiful.
Once you are done cleaning out your shower, it is important that you carefully dry all surfaces to avoid spotting. You can use a soft towel or a blow dryer. For best results, quickly mop up your shower after each use to keep your finish intact.
Simplifying the Process
If the idea of drying off your shower after every use just sounds horrible to you, there are other stone options. Sintered stone shower walls are a combination of stone ground down and fused using heat and pressure, as it would be in nature. This allows manufacturers to create high-quality sintered stone slabs with high durability that can be made to look like pretty much anything. Neolith uses sintered stone to provide clients with a wide variety of finishes, textures, and colors.
The variety provided by sintered stone is just one perk. As with quartz countertops, sintered stone is sealed during manufacturing, meaning you don’t have to seal it every year. It is still recommended that you use mellow, non-acidic detergents, and a soft towel for cleaning. Sintered stone is still natural stone. It has just been reshaped and recolored to fit your precise needs with the added bonus of increased durability.
As with anything you own, treat your natural stone shower with love and care if you want it to look brand new a decade down the line. Neolith just makes that a little bit easier.