Maintaining your Acrylic Bathtub

A cordial Happy New Year from all of us at River Range. We trust you had a pleasant festive period and are refreshed with new bathroom ideas for 2018. In our previous blog, we offered a host of Built-in Bathroom Ideas for your Home. With acrylic emerging as an outstanding and economical material in bathroom design and DIY, we felt it necessary to answer a common question and inform customers of the simplicity in maintaining your acrylic bathtub. While simplicity is the keyword in acrylic maintenance, we favor the approach of “mild and gentle”, for effectiveness. Maintaining your acrylic bathtub is not difficult, but it should be approached in a different method to cast iron bathtubs, porcelain, and bath fixtures made from natural stone material. Read on, to find out all you need to keep your acrylic bathtub in sparkling condition.

When maintaining an acrylic bathtub, your first priority is to upkeep that beautiful shine you associate with your designer bathtub. The key to maintaining that gleam is gentle cleaning with little more than a sponge and some soap. Firstly, check that the soap you use is safe to use on acrylic surfaces, and doesn’t hide any potent chemicals capable of stripping any materials. We advise filling the tub with an inch or so of warm water while gently wiping along the tub’s surface with a sponge or soft cloth to eliminate any grime or residue. If mild soap doesn’t do the trick, consider a multipurpose cleaner such as Handy Andy, to dissolve tougher stains.

Taking the example of the River Range’s Congo Bathtub and the Angara Corner Bathtub, the high gloss finish ensures that gentle scratches can be polished out. Using scouring pads and abrasive materials should be avoided at all costs, as they will scratch the shine out of your bathtub and cause permanent damage to the acrylic. Remember again, ‘keep it simple’ – it applies to the technique as much as to the cleaning product used.

The ugliest and toughest part of acrylic bathtub maintenance is undoubtedly cleaning the soap scum layer that can build up over time in our bathtubs. There are many reported methods for cleaning the toughest of these grey stains. If soap doesn’t suffice, we recommend applying a paste of baking soda on the stain and wash. For tackling major ‘soap scum scenarios’, introduce vinegar as a safe acid to break down the scum.

River Range, a proud division of the DADO bath and shower line, is a market leader in South Africa for luxury bathtubs. We specialize in a range of high quality (10-year warranty) cross-linked acrylic bathtubs available in Freestanding, Center, End and Corner built-in bathtubs with shower trays. If you find yourself in any doubt about cleaning or maintaining your acrylic bathtub, contact us today for a host of advice and tips. Keep abreast of the latest acrylic bathroom trends and product news by joining our Facebook page today.