Letter 12107

Clorox stained my bathtub, can it be removed?

A friend told me to use 1/2 clorox and 1/2/ water to remove mold spores from the tub. I sprayed this mixture on last night and woke up to find that I now have a brown stains in the center of my tub due to the clorox I used last night to kill mold spores. I tried scrubbing it off with Comet, it helped some, but it's still there... anything I can do to remove this stain??? My tub is an original porcelain tub, the tile on the walls are fine, but the tub got stained.

Summer Black
- Decatur, Georgia

Household bleach is an alkaline material and consequently will precipitate iron out of water. It sounds like that's what happened since iron stains are rust colored. A mildly acidic household product made for removal of iron stains should take care of it. Read the label for CLR [link is to product info at Amazon], or Lime-A-Way [link is to product info at Amazon] and see if it is recommended for this. Hopefully we don't have to warn you of the personal dangers of mixing bleach with other cleaners.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

Re the stain in bathtub - I recently had my landlord reglaze my tub and set down a sponge full of bleach. It left a yellow spot. Is there a paint? Or will hydrogen peroxide [link is to product info at Amazon] with cream of tartar remove it?

Georgia Lolafredo
- Los Angeles, CA, USA

+++++++

I have enamel bath tub, there brown stains and I have tried a number of stain removers but with avail. I also tried to scrub with sand scrubber and again no success. I need your help.

Thanks

Sasyad Hussain
- Ewa Beach, HI, USA

August 29, 2009

Hi, folks. Yes, many people have reported amazing success at removing bathtub stains with hydrogen peroxide. See Letter 8229

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey