Keeping glass mosaic in the shower clean?

13 years ago

Hello all -

I am thinking about using glass mosaic for my master shower (the gorgeous recycled sumi-e glass by lunada bay tile), but I am concerned about how hard it will be to prevent the water spots and keep it clean.

Our prior master shower was glass doors - which we scraped with the squeegee after every shower and still got spotted - and honed limestone tile, which was a dream - sealed it once or twice over the years and never scraped it down and it looked great. (Of course, the fact that the calcium deposits from the water are essentially the same material as limestone has not escaped my attention! And the honed finish instead of the polished certainly hides things a lot better, too.)

I don't mind the daily scrapedown on the smooth glass doors of the shower, but the glass mosaic will not be smooth and I can't see that scraping that down would be useful (and would also be time-consuming).

Those of you with glass mosaic in your shower - how do you keep that beautiful glass beautiful over the years?

TIA.

Comments (2)

davidro1
13 years ago
has anyone ever seen a steamer in action? Some cost next to nothing and hold a pint. Some cost $500 and have features galore.

I have a steamer.

In my bathrooms I have epoxy grout.
it comes back to its original light color every time we clean it.
We use a steamer, and sometimes with bleach too.
I've also used Comet Ajax etc. on calcium deposits.
Whatever works: with moderation, many different methods work.

Epoxy grout scares installers because they have to unlearn habits and pay attention to other things. Reading instructions and following them is always a good way to start the process, and with epoxy it is important. Epoxy can be applied in a very thin layer almost like a top-up, on top of the thinset or regular cement grout that you can fill the grout lines partially with, so you don't need a large amount of epoxy and you won't need to "pack it in" since the tilesetter often leaves grout lines very empty (it makes tile setting easier). Or, you can just do it all with epoxy, without going through the additional step of mixing more thinset or grout and filling the grout lines halfway. But then you might end up with one spot where the grout "slumps" later because of an invisible-to-your-eye hole in the thinset coverage under a tile, and the epoxy grout slumped into it after you thought you were done with it. You can also use epoxy as the setting bed. Whatever. The point is, tile setting and grouting is harder than it seems to be, and using epoxy grout is good if you are prepared psychologically for the extra effort of paying attention to details that you normally don't think of.

Some cement-based grouts that were light color initially, will darken with time and no amount of steaming or bleaching will bring them back to the light shade they once were. With a glass tile mosaic, you will use a non-sanded grout. Get the best quality of cement-based grout or get epoxy grout.

Steamers have attachments just like vacuum cleaners do. Some of these attachments let you wipe off glass with calcium/water stains. Easy as pie. Read the instructions first. A steam nozzle needs an attachment or else its output is too much energy too concentrated.

Conclusions:
A steamer in any shower will work well.
Epoxy grout is an option for your beautiful mosaic.

Good luck with your tile setting.
plumkrazy
13 years ago
Interested in the responses to this... we're also using Sumi-e in the shower but only a small accent band higher up, so cleaning shouldn't be too much of an issue.
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Keeping glass mosaic in the shower clean?

Comments (2)

davidro1

plumkrazy

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