How To Unclog A Shower Head On The Cheap The Environmentally Friendly Way

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Step One:
First, you must own a clogged shower head that will no longer put out the quantity and force of water it once did, or a shower head that, like ours, has taken to shooting streams of water sideways over the top of your shower curtain so that your entire bathroom can enjoy your showers with you. If you are like us, you live in an apartment, your city has hard water, your landlord outfitted your shower with the cheapest shower head Canadian Tire had to offer in 1988, and you are already a pro at this unclogging business.

(I cannot help but imagine what an unclogging business might look like: cloggers gather under cover of night; an anonymous tip is called in to the Unified National Clogging Liquefaction Order for the Good; fueled by their mandate to stomp out clogging wherever it may be, UNCLOG mobilizes; within twenty minutes, fifty underground cloggers are leapt upon by fifty more UNCLOG members, who swiftly remove the cloggers' footwear and disappear with the offending shoes into the dark; the cloggers, left unable to clog, filter off to their cars hidden in the corn; a near-clogging is narrowly averted until Willy's Dance, Dance, Dance Emporium smuggles in a new shipment of black market Mr. Stompers.)

A-hem.

Step Two:
After ascertaining that your shower head is, indeed, spluttering, grab your keys and head over to the grocery store to buy a bottle of white vinegar, because you never have any around. What have you ever done with white vinegar apart from making that green bean and onion salad with sugar that nearly put you into a diabetic coma?

Step Three:
Is it night yet? Because it should be night. This part takes several hours, and you will want to do it at a time when people will not be needing the shower.

Fill a container large enough to submerse your shower head in with the vinegar. You can use a deep bowl, a bag with an elastic to hold it around the shower head, or whatever else that seems sufficient. I use a salvaged yogurt container, because it's taller than it is wide, which means I do not have to use as much vinegar. You know how important it is to conserve our dwindling vinegar supplies.

The lazy keeps me from microwaving the vinegar until it is just about boiling, but I have heard tell that that may increase its effectiveness. You could also throw in some baking soda for some extra fizzing action. ««According to Butterfly, baking soda will make the vinegar less effective. Just use plain vinegar.

Submerse your crappy shower head in the vinegar, and make sure that the entire head is covered. Let it stand like that for hours and hours. I usually leave it for about eight hours, just for good measure.

When the shower head is done soaking, pour the used vinegar down the drain with some baking soda, because why not let it do double duty and unclog your tub's drain, as well?

Step Four:
This step is totally optional. I say that, because I am far too lazy for a complete follow-through with this unclogging thing.

You can, if you want to be thorough, use an old toothbrush to brush away any extra surface build-up, and if you are really into it, you can take a medium-sized needle and poke it through the shower head holes to make sure that all the passageways are clear.

I never do this, which means that I unclog a lot. I never claimed to be a master unclogger.

Step Five:
Voilà! Your shower head should be in fine working order.

Have a good long shower to test-drive your handiwork. If your bathroom is no longer being flooded by stray streams of water and the water pressure is once again high enough to effectively rinse the conditioner out of your hair, then you have succeeded. Sing it love songs in your very best Barry White. If your shower head is detachable, let it know exactly how much you appreciate its new youthful exuberance. Don't be shy. This is a special consummation of renewed faith and commitment. It should be celebrated.

I am a participant in NaBloPoMo.

Labels: the how-tos, the photographs

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18 comments:  jon deal If you have a smaller showerhead, you can try cutting a lemon in half and, using a plastic baggie and a couple rubber bands, attach the lemon to the face of the showerhead. Let sit overnight. In both cases you are letting a mild acid do its thing on the hard water deposits. You could also use a lime and then make a gin & tonic with the other half of the lime. Makes the overnight wait go a little faster if you are drunk and passed out. :-]    Koan I should probably feel ashamed that I have, more than once, opted for the lazy-ass approach of buying a new shower-head, instead of unclogging. I should... but, I don't. I'm like that. Devil-may-care, me.    BarbaraCA I'm so happy to see that you buy what appear to be matching shampoo and conditioner. I think hair products get freaked out when they are paired all interfaith. I do it anyway.    srah I am now picturing myself rubber-banding a slice of lime to my showerhead, leaving it overnight, forgetting to take it off in the morning and taking an entire shower in lime-flavored water before I figure out what the problem is. I could do that.    butterfly Just a chemistry note here: Adding baking soda to the vinegar, while creating an impressive display of fizzing action, will actually decrease the effectiveness of the vinegar...because vinegar is an acid and baking soda is a base...when mixed together, they neutralize each other. Okay, sorry for that annoying nerd moment ;-D    /\ or if you want to remember those joyous days of childhood when your baths consisted almost solely of dousing yourself with the water hose, you could go without the showerhead altogether. i like to do this from time to time in my swimming trunks and flip flops.    palinode What I do is, I run a bath, then take barbiturates until I lose consciousness. I wake up refreshed a couple of hours later on the bathroom floor and get in the bath, which by then is all icy cold. Just the way I like it. I only shower in the presence of my enemies, and since I don't invite my enemies over much, I don't shower much. So clogging isn't much of a problem.    Edward Palonek Congratulations on the Win. Edward Palonek http://www.palonek.ca/    Schmutzie Edward, what win is this to which you are referring?!    greeneggsandtam I miss you!    Gwen What does your shower head taste like? I'm guessing vinegar, but since it seems one of you knows, I thought I'd ask.    Scoobers me thinks it's time for some unclogging. thanks for the tip! although, i'll do the best Jewel that I can. She's more in my range.    sarbear oh my gosh. you are licking your showerhead. that is funny stuff.    kate Hot damn - I'd never given a moment's thought to unclogging. Instead, the water sprays everywhere and I curse. Maybe it's a comforting ritual or something ... I've got the vinegar but it's in a cupboard that I get stuck in trying to reach for things. If you don't ever hear from me again, you'll know I'm permanently stuck trying to reach the vinegar.    Eve I have tried unclogging a shower head using the vinegar method and failed. Maybe I'm too impatient. I opted for the buy a new head approach. Works a treat!    Rebecca I'm glad I read this. The last time I tried the vinegar-cleaning thing on my shower head, I added baking soda at the insistence of those two women on BBC America's How Clean Is Your House? It didn't work at all. Thanks for the tip, Butterfly!    Schmutzie BarbaraCA, those only look like matching shampoo/conditioner in the last photo. The store has only been stocking the conditioner, for some reason, but they line it up in two rows, so I bought two, thinking they weren't the exact same thing. Now we have way too much conditioner in an apartment with such short-haired people. Gwen, that shower head had no flavour whatsoever, so clean was it from the vinegar.    Marie Errr... can I get the recipe for that bean and onion salad?   blog comment guidelines post a comment ~ Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] ~ main page