What could be causing the pitting and corroding to chrome kitchen stuff

A. Hi Andy. I would not suspect that for two reasons: First, because I also have a ventless gas fireplace we use almost constantly and I don't have the problem myself. Second, because unless the UK is a lot different than the USA, ventless fireplaces have "oxygen sensors" that won't let them burn 'dirty'. Incomplete combustion or even too much dust in the air cuts off the flame. It's possible that it's sulfur [affil links] in the fuel but I doubt it.

P.S.: As an engineer, always in search of 'the elegant solution', the 'oxygen sensor' on ventless fireplaces is the flabbergastingly simple ultimate one -- consisting of nothing but a tiny hole :-) As people might know, the pilot light flame lands on a thermocouple, keeping it hot, which in turn keeps the gas valve energized to allow gas flow. If the pilot light goes out, the thermocouple cools, the valve closes, and gas won't flow through it until the pilot is relit and heats the thermocouple. An oxygen sensor is just a tiny precision hole near the end of the gas pipe. Air, containing oxygen, flows in through that hole, mixes with the gas and lets the pilot flame start right at the end of the pipe under the thermocouple. If the hole gets blocked by dust, or the oxygen content in the air drops too low, not enough oxygen enters through that tiny hole, so the pilot light flame can't start right at the end of the pipe but must wait for more air to mix with the gas. And that further away point where the flame then burns is beyond the thermocouple ... so the thermocouple cools and the gas shuts off.

What might be a more applicable explanation for your situation, is that plating -- most especially nickel-chrome plating -- ranges in quality from outstanding (able to withstand everything the world throws at it on a truck bumper for decades) to utterly abysmal (tiny rust pits while the items are still for sale). It is quite possible that your handles, designed for a bit of wear, have significantly better plating than your lights and curtain rails.

Regards,

A. It's your water. That's why it's only the faucet and not the handles. Water runs through the faucet so it's causing the pitting. I bet even if you haven't used the faucet for a while and the pitting is bad enough you can probably run your hand over it and it will be wet where water seeps through from inside the faucet. Like condensation. Mine are doing the same thing and I was told I have hard water. I'm on a well so I'd have to purchase a water softener to prevent this from happening. Hard water also corrodes pipes in the home causing water leaks. Which we have been having issues with now since our home is 25 yrs old. Hope this helped!

A. Thanks Angela. I don't think I agree with you at all, but I've been wrong before :-)
Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi Debra. With no description of exactly what's corroded, or pictures or history, sorry, it could be almost anything. Have you had the floors acid washed? Do you use a lot of straight bleach? Do you have strange smells from a neighbors's house. Give us some clues please :-)

Regards,

A. Debbie, You state that you live in the desert. Do you have a pool? Where do you store your pool chemicals? If you are storing them in an attached garage get them out of there.

A. My experience -- although most of it is just handling letters on this site, rather than hands-on -- is that muriatic acid [affil links] or chlorine bleach is the culprit. Look for the use of this on the floor, or the wall grout, or even on the fixtures if the consumer is uneducated. Perhaps a toilet bowl cleaner with muriatic acid was used under the sink, or spilled, or was just left open. It's pretty hard to hurt good chrome with most things, but muriatic acid will do it in a snap.

A. It would only have to be used on the floor or walls once and the fumes would drift through the bathroom destroying the chrome. But if it wasn't there, it wasn't there. But other cleaning products include muriatic acid. If bleach was used a few times I think it could attack the piping this way, although it looks like classic muriatic acid damage to me.

A. Sorry, I can't answer that one myself. However, I think it's acid attack ... and it seems more likely to be fumes than exposure to liquid ... which means I'd suspect an acid that fumes ... and muriatic acid does fume ... and muriatic acid is used for grout removal as well as in toilet bowl cleaners. I can't refute hard evidence to the contrary if it exists; but lacking any real evidence, and knowing that the chrome in that bathroom was exposed to something, muriatic acid fumes just seems more plausible to me than anything else; but wiping all that stuff with bleach is perhaps another possibility.

A. Hi Melanie. Kids are tough, and encounter a lot of stuff; if he seems healthy I personally wouldn't give his health another thought. But, sorry, I have zero medical training and can't advise anyone else how they should feel or how they should react to their qualms.

You might ask the county health department if they have any sort of chlorine gas monitor to put in that cabinet for a few days. If that's not available, and there's no chlorine smell, I'd assume the chlorine was long gone and would replace the rusted hinges, cover plates, handles on the shut-off valves, and the drain pop-up arrangement because it's easy & relatively cheap, and it looks terrible. Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. The question about the corrosion; some bleaches contain sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) and this has a horrible smell of chlorine. If you have used a bleach that is based on hypochlorite, it could very well corrode as you have shown. Secondly, using muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) seems a bit extreme to remove excess grout. Cannot you just scrape it off with a putty knife or "Scotchbrite"? Muriatic acid is a very strong acid and not pleasant to handle; it will readily attack most metals and cause corrosion when either a vapour or liquid. I know commercial cheap industrial hydrochloric acid (in the UK) can contain some iron and this will give it a slight green tinge, so if you put this onto grout, it may be adsorbed and turn the grout a pale green that will ultimately turn brown. However, pure hydrochloric acid should not contain anything that itself will turn grout a different colour.

A. Trevor: I've done quite a bit of ceramic, porcelain, and quarry tiling. The grout is spread onto the tiles and sponged around until it mostly gets sqished into all the cracks/joints. This leaves a film of grout on the surface of the tile that you can remove while it's still damp by almost endless sponging & rinsing and dumping & refilling the wash bucket. That's the only way I've ever done it, but it is more time consuming than you could believe, and just when you think a section is done a corner of your sponge pulls some grout up from the joint and spreads it on the tile again :-)   Once the grout is dry you can't remove it that way, and your only option is acid washing to dissolve it.

Contractors apparently sometimes can't afford the time for the endless washing & rewashing & rewashing & rewashing ... and do just a quick wipe up, and then go back and remove the grout haze from the tile with acid. If the acid is too strong or they don't have excellent ventilation, or don't use great care and have an empty house, the fumes are likely to corrode stuff.

A. Mike: Bleach is a great disinfectant so I understand why your wife would use it, but it's terribly corrosive to metal for the same reason that it kills germs: tremendous oxidation power. If you search the site there are a lot of student science projects where the kids are looking for what liquid will cause the most rust fastest and they are usually amazed at how quickly bleach corrodes metals. A good new nickel-chromium plating may hold up for a short while, but once there are some wear spots or pinholes the bleach will be incredibly corrosive.

A. Chlorine bleach can indeed cause these types of issues.
It can happen even faster if it's used in a strong solution.
Very dilute solutions are not as harmful but can, over time, also cause damage to chrome plating.
Toilet bowl cleaners can also attack chrome fixtures especially acid bowl cleaners commonly used by professional cleaners.
Green oxides, black corrosion and stripping of the chrome plating partially or entirely are the result.

A. I routinely use bleach to remove chrome plating from plastic parts. I just immerse the parts and wait a few weeks. The chrome turns into a black sludge in the bottom of the container. Does no one do experiments anymore to investigate a hypothesis? Check out www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261306906002469

A. I would guess that the faucet in your guest room has more undisturbed time to form oxides than the others in your house.

Just a guess, but it seems possible.

A. The cause of the fixture is definitely muriatic (aka hydrochloric) acid. It is the primary ingredient in toilet bowl cleaners. Why? Because toilet bowls have no metal in their assembly. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) slowly removes chromium plate. It may take a year or two to see the green crusty stuff. That is the underlying copper contained in the chrome plated brass parts. Eventually, the removal of the chrome reveals the gold-colored brass which corrodes quickly when exposed to HCl, creating more green stuff. Toilet bowl cleaner may not be there now, but it could have done the damage months ago. Don't doubt this. Look at the ingredients in toilet bowl cleaner. The key letters are HCl. This problem is prevalent throughout the world but is not understood. Walk into any restroom that has been in existence for a few years. It's everywhere.

A. Hi Koren. Flemington NJ doesn't sound like an especially corrosive place. Have you used bleach or muriatic acid in the bathroom? If not, I'd say your caddy and shower curtain hooks are cheap Chinese garbage. Unfortunately, nickel-chrome plating which is not done well is worse that bare steel with no plating at all because, if there is any porosity or pinholes, the underlying steel is forced to become a sacrificial anode protecting the nickel plating. Please see our FAQ, "Understanding Chrome Plating" for both an understanding of this, and a close-up picture of a crappy shower caddy rusted before the big box store even sold it :-(

Regards,

A. I've worked in the hotel industry for more than 22 years in the housekeeping department. The oxidation you see on all metal fixtures is due to chlorine vapors. Chlorine reacts to organic materials such as lime, or even the air we breathe. The strong smell is not just a chlorine smell, it will deteriorate all metals and that's because chlorine is an oxidizing agent. Make sure not to keep bleach bottles inside cabinets. Make sure to rinse throughly after use. And only use it to remove stains. For disinfecting bathrooms use other agents such as quaternary ammonium, or a peroxide based disinfectant. Hope this helps.

A. Hi. I can't advise on medical issues, but the chlorine fumes will eventually dissipate -- the more ventilation you can provide, the sooner. If weather permits, or if you have another bathroom, keep the window wide open, any vent fan on, and maybe a portable fan inside the cabinet. baking soda [on eBay or Amazon] will help, but you also want excellent air flow.
Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey