Weird deposits on granite counter - how to remove and prevent
July 18, 2016 10:58 AM   Subscribe

I bought a place in a building built in 2007 that has granite counters. The previous owner apparently was not sealing them at all. I managed to clean and seal the kitchen one on Saturday, but there are a lot of hard white deposits that look like minerals from hard water around the bathroom sink that I can't remove. Help?

I've tried using actual white vinegar, a cleaner based on white vinegar, and even a calcium/lime/rust remover product that is stronger and more acidic, but no amount of letting the solution sit and then scrubbing is doing anything.

How can I get the deposits off? Is there some physical way I can do this, like sanding or scraping, without damaging the stone more? Or another product I should use? I'd like to completely remove them then seal + polish the whole area once it's clean, in the hopes of preventing it from happening more in the future.

The usual people I ask about these things (my brother, the folks at my hardware store) were just telling me to use CLR but that hasn't helped and I am concerned it might be making it worse. Thanks in advance.
posted by anonymous to Home & Garden (2 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
There's stronger mineral scale remover than CLR that you can buy at pool supply stores, intended to remove mineral scales from tiles surrounding the waterline in pools. There are many brands - just ask for 'scale remover' and a clerk should be able to point you in the right direction. Such products have been successful for me in the past where CLR and LimeAway failed.

Obviously, try to test it on an out-of-sight area to see if it causes any kind of adverse reaction on the surface of your counter.

Scraping with a razor blade (make sure to buy the correct equipment to hold the razor, if you don't have it - check in the painting area of any hardware store near the other scraping implements) may also yield some limited results, depending on the thickness of the scale.
posted by BrandonW at 12:11 PM on July 18, 2016


I would recommend talking to a counter installation specialist about this. I've recently had a problem with a quartz counter-top and the installers know all sorts of things about fixing surface finishes.
posted by cardboard at 12:18 PM on July 18, 2016


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