My relationship with this room has been strictly utilitarian. I try not to spend much time in there as I can get a little claustrophobic from time to time. There is a baby on the way, however, and that baby will need to be cleaned on occasion, and that has put me into sanitize mode.
Sanitize mode is a scary place, especially if one is standing in my shower. Since the tub is older, the enamel has begun to wear away meaning that water doesn’t just slip right down the drain anymore. The drips and drops and moisture like to puddle up and then slowly evaporate. This is fine by me except that it tends to leave behind a nice pinkish mildew (yes, I know it matches the tile but it's really not very sanitary). So, for the health of my pregnant wife and soon to be child I decided I would squash my mild fear of tight spaces and clean the tub.
Now there are a variety of tub and tile cleaners available on the market. Some work better than others. Some foam up, some need to soak and then you scrub, some require plastic gloves and a gas mask. Not wanting to marinate my pregnant wife and unborn child in a toxic stew of corrosive chemicals I was searching for an alternative cleanser. Bon-Ami, basically baking soda, works great but takes time and lots of elbow grease. I needed something fast, effective and environmentally friendly. Then it struck me - the power washer!
My father-in-law loaned us his power washer last summer to enable us to quickly strip the paint off of our back porch (which, by the way, we still haven’t gotten around to doing). I thought to myself, it’s just high-pressure water…what could be more environmentally friendly than water? If it can strip paint away from wood surely blasting mildew from worn tile and enamel would be a snap.
So I hooked the hose up to the outside spigot and dragged it through the kitchen and hallway which lead to the bathroom. I had the power washer sitting in the sink (I thought that it may leak some so it should rest in the sink). For those that have never used a power washer before it’s a great piece of equipment. You plug it into an outlet which drives a motor which builds up air pressure in the tank. A hose is attached to the side of the tank to feed water into this high-pressure environment. Then there is a trigger operated gun/wand, much like you’d find at a coin-operated car wash; this is the business end of the washer.
I hooked up the hose, plugged in the washer and fired it up. The noise level was pretty fantastic. The air pump is loud and the water, as I had predicted, was leaking out at the connection between tank and hose… maybe leaking isn’t quite right, squirting out in a small stream is perhaps a better description, but it was in the sink so no harm no foul. I pulled the shower curtain to the side and boldly told my bathroom mildew to say ‘ello to my little friend (a la Scarface). With a pull on the trigger an ultra-concentrated stream of water shot out of the nozzle. It was working! I could see the mildew disappear right before my eyes. Aim and fire! Voila, a clean tub. I methodically worked my way around the tub and drain, up the tile, around the built-in soap dish. It was a truly fantastic sight.
About midway through the operation, however, I realized there was some blow back - while the water was blasting away the scum, it was also creating quite a bit of mist. This mist was similar to the mist one might find at the base of a large waterfall; the type of mist you can barely feel but within seconds it has coated everything and soaked it through and through. I turned my gaze away from my now sparkling tub to stare at the rest of the bathroom and it was like a Salvador Dali painting. Everything was dripping. The lights, the mirror, the toilet, all were glistening with a fine coating of environmentally friendly water. Not only was there the water but the pressure seemed to blast away some of the caulking around the tub and bit of grout was now missing from between some of the tiles.
I had passed the point-of-no-return, however, and finished the job. I mopped up the floor with several towels. I still have to re-caulk the tub and tiles. In the end, the tub was clean and I was glad that my bathroom was as small as it was because my pond would have been a lake and, instead of clean up with a few towels, I would have needed a sump pump.
I promise only to bathe baby with a soft and supple wash cloth…
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