How To Remove Mold From Caulking in Shower

Introduction

Mold in the shower is gross, but it happens. It’s the perfect environment for mold to grow, especially in the cracks between your shower tiles, which is the caulking that keeps your shower held together. If you get mold in those cracks you don’t have to worry because this article will show you how to remove mold from caulking in shower.

It’s actually a fairly easy process, but important because mold is detrimental to your health and just plain unsightly. No one wants to shower in a bathtub or shower splattered with mold.

Let’s jump in and first answer why mold appears in your shower.

Why Mold Appears in Your Shower

Mold most commonly appears in damp environments. That’s why you see it in basements, underneath sinks, and other areas that are prone to leaking. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mold can easily appear in your shower if you don’t take the proper precuations.

Now, typically your shower will dry and there shouldn’t be any dampness or water leftover, but that’s not always the case.

If you tend to notice your shower staying damp for hours after using it, you might have found the cause of your shower mold. If you find that the water isn’t draining, but sitting on the cracks between the tiles, the caulk, then you might have found your cause of mold.

Before we dive into how to prevent mold in the future, let’s talk about how to remove mold from caulking in shower.

How to Remove Mold From Caulking in Shower

Once you find the mold in your shower, your first thought should be how to get rid of it. It’s unsightly and can cause you sickness, so the sooner you get rid of it, the better. And the best part is that it’s a fairly easy process.

Here are the steps on how to remove mold from caulking in your shower:

Mix baking soda and vinegar in a bowl. Start with baking soda and add vinegar until you get a liquid about the consistency of paint.
Apply that mixture to the caulking in your shower. Make sure to thoroughly coat all the mold. It won’t hurt to apply the substance to other areas of caulking that don’t have visible mold yet, just in case mold is starting to grow there, but you can’t see it.
Leave the mixture on the caulking for a few hours. 2 to 4 hours should be long enough.
Rinse the mixture with hot water to loosen it and then wipe it clean, ensuring to completely remove the mixture and the mold from the caulking.
Continue to rinse with hot water to completely clean the caulking between the tiles.
Repeat if you continue to see mold in the caulking in your shower.

And that’s it! Pretty easy and the best part is that it’s completely organic because we didn’t use any harsh chemicals. We’re a big fan of baking soda and vinegar as we’ve written about it in the past.

Here are a few of the other articles we’ve written on how to use baking soda and vinegar to clean various surfaces in your home. Everything from your shower, carpet, stove top, mop, and even your couch. To say it’s a useful cleaning solution would be an understatement.

How to Prevent Mold in Your Shower

Now that you know why the mold appeared in your shower and how to get rid of it, the next most important part is understanding how to prevent mold in your shower in the first place. After all, what good is removing the mold if it’s just going to come back in a few weeks.

Adequate Ventilation

We know that mold comes from dampness, so if we can avoid having a damp environment for an extended period of time, we can ensure the mold doesn’t come back.

As mentioned earlier, if you notice your shower is remaining damp for a few hours after you shower, then try any of the following to keep that dampness at bay:

Running the bathroom fan
Opening a window in the bathroom
Leaving the shower door open
Separating the shower curtain and shower liner
Quickly drying the shower with a towel

The most important component of any of those items is to get rid of the constant dampness. Those are the most common ways, but depending on your bathroom some might not be possible. Whatever is possible for you, just remember the ultimate goal is to get rid of that water.

Avoid Standing Water

Similar to removing the water that sits on your shower walls and on your floor, look for any signs of standing water. If you come back a couple hours after showering and find a puddle in your shower or standing water in between the tiles, then you will have to figure out a way to avoid that in the future.

It might mean coming back an hour after showering and pushing that water down the drain or drying it with a towel.

The ultimate goal here is to avoid standing water, so however you do that will result in less mold in your shower.

Regular Cleaning

This is an important one because regular cleaning will ensure your shower or caulk in the shower doesn’t have time to grow mold. Mold takes time to grow, not a lot of time, but enough that if you clean your shower regularly you should be able to stop it before it becomes visible and dangerous.

You can clean your shower with any type of organic cleaning solution, such as a vinegar-based solution, or something stronger like this scrub-free cleaning solution from Amazon.

If you know you should clean, but don’t like doing it because of all the effort, check out this article on how to clean shower tiles without scrubbing.

Avoid Suction Bath Mats

As mentioned earlier, standing water is one of the most common ways mold starts to build up in your shower. The solution to that is to avoid standing water and one of the biggest culprits of standing water is a suction bath mat.

It’s nice to have a non-slip bath mat that sticks firmly to your shower floor, but it’s also the cause of standing water. The water has a difficult time finding the drain and thus just sits under the bathmat, ultimately causing the unsightly and unhealthy mold directly underneath your feet.

The solution here is to just get rid of the suction bath mat. It’s not ideal, but if you had a choice, you would probably choose to not have the bath mat if it meant no mold.

Common Questions

You likely have a lot of questions about mold in your shower, so let’s take some time to answer them now.

Can I Get Sick from Mold in the Shower?

Yes, mold in the shower can make you sick, especially if it’s black mold. If you start to notice a cough, headache, difficulty breathing, or other abnormal signs of sickness, then check your shower for mold.

The symptoms of mold sickness can vary, but if it’s anything out of the ordinary then it’s worth investigating your shower for mold and then taking the steps to remove it.

Is Shower Mold Hard to Remove?

Nope, mold is actually very easy to remove as outlined earlier in the section How to Remove Mold from Caulking in Shower. The biggest issue is that the mold can easily pop up and people don’t think about it.

But you should be removing the mold as soon as it’s visible and then take steps to avoid that mold in the future via regular cleaning.

How Often Should I Clean My Shower?

You should clean your shower at least once every 2 weeks with a regular cleaning solution or an organic one consisting of 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water. Make sure to thoroughly scrub the shower walls, door handles, faucet, and any other parts of the shower.

The purpose of this cleaning is to remove any current build-up and prevent any future build-up, which can turn into mold and become much harder to remove.

Should I use Bleach to Remove Shower Mold?

You can use bleach to remove shower mold, but that’s not something we recommend because bleach is a toxic, dangerous chemical, especially if you are using it in an enclosed space, which would include most bathrooms.

We recommend utilizing a vinegar and baking soda solution, which is non-toxic, safe, and effective in removing mold from your shower and caulking.

Conclusion

This article was meant to provide information on how to remove mold from shower caulking and hopefully it was effective in it’s endeavor.

At first, we reviewed why mold appears in your shower, how to remove that mold using a cleaning solution of vinegar and baking soda, and finally how to prevent that mold from reappearing. After all, once you remove it you don’t want it to come back.

Finally, we reviewed common questions related to shower mold that will hopefully provide more context as to how shower mold appears and how you can get rid of it once and for all in the future.