Best way to actually clean my glass shower door? - eviltoast

I squeegee the water off whenever I’m done but later on it still has that foggy water look. How do I get the door to look actually clear?

    • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I have a dumb question: why heat up the vinegar? Does it help with some kind of chemical reaction in the mixing or does heat just help to make the mixture to be more effective so it needs to be used before it cools down?

      My apartment has incredibly hard water, so sinks, toilets, and showers always look rough. It just now occurred to me that maybe rain x on the glass after cleaning could be a decent preventative measure unless somebody can tell me why that’s a bad idea?

      • Billegh@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I don’t have their reason, but a big one is that hot liquids can hold more things. It’s why adding sugar to hot tea and cooling it is better than using cold tea. Warm/hot vinegar will dissolve hard water remnants faster and with less manual input than cold/room temp vinegar.

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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          8 months ago

          It’s not that “hot liquids hold more things” afaik, it’s that hot liquids have more energy to break apart the larger particles into smaller ones, i.e. dissolve them. Otherwise you’d expect the dissolved sugar to settle at the bottom when you cool the tea back down.

        • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I absolutely assumed that this part is true, but I’m wondering if this is pretty useless after it’s cooled down or if it’s still okay to make a big batch and use it over a couple of months or however long it could last. There’s also the concern of mixing vinegar which is acidic with a soap which tends to be alkali. Idk what to expect chemically speaking, but then adding heat and agitation will certainly cause a more aggressive chemical reaction. I assume this won’t explode or produce toxic fumes or anything, but this might not be particularly shelf stable because it’s relying on the reaction from the mixing to do some scrubbing bubbles action on some of the challenging shit? Idk, I just hesitate to trust this sort of “life hack” type info because so much of it has proven to be anything ranging from useless bullshit to corporate astroturfing (buy Dawn!) to downright dangerous advice.

          My hunch is that it probably works great for the first hour or so after mixing and then has immediate diminishing returns, so it’s probably best to make a small batch, immediately spray it on everything you want to hit with it, and then go back and wipe up in the order you sprayed this shit onto. But idk, I haven’t tried it, use at your own risk. Amateur chemistry has risks.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            8 months ago

            It’s the heat energy doing the work not some chemical reaction that is still present after the solution cools off.

    • esc27@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Put it in one of those scrubbers with a built in soap dispenser and keep it on the shower. Then you can scrub when you shower.

      • Taco2112@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I may be wrong but I believe dish soap is an alkaline/base and I know vinegar is acidic. If you mix the two, they are going to neutralize each other. I’d try just the vinegar and some hot water, that’s I use to clean water scale build ups.

        • RuBisCO@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          I could also be wrong, but I believe SDS has less ‘affinity’ for protons than acetic acid (which is part of the reason why detergents work so well). You’d need sulfuric acid, or something stronger, and removal from solution of its buddy ion sodium. Then I think you could protonate dodecyl sulfate.

          Now acetic acid and soaps…yeah, far more likely to generate scum. The polar head is a weaker acid.

          The importance of soap to human civilization is documented by history, but some problems associated with its use have been recognized. One of these is caused by the weak acidity (pKa ca. 4.9) of the fatty acids. Solutions of alkali metal soaps are slightly alkaline (pH 8 to 9) due to hydrolysis. If the pH of a soap solution is lowered by acidic contaminants, insoluble fatty acids precipitate and form a scum. A second problem is caused by the presence of calcium and magnesium salts in the water supply (hard water). These divalent cations cause aggregation of the micelles, which then deposit as a dirty scum.

          These problems have been alleviated by the development of synthetic amphiphiles called detergents (or syndets). By using a much stronger acid for the polar head group, water solutions of the amphiphile are less sensitive to pH changes. Also the sulfonate functions used for virtually all anionic detergents confer greater solubility on micelles incorporating the alkaline earth cations found in hard water.

          ChemLibreTexts