Not all of the shower head nozzles have water coming out of them. Usually, I give them a flick with my nail and that fixes it, but when I did that this time, the water shot out at a weird angle.
I've had this happen before, too, and usually another flick or two solves it. Not this time.
The stream from that one jet seemed determined to stay weird. I also have a bunch of jets that aren't working at all, too many to flick them all, so it was time to implement the deep clean.
I found instructions on the HGTV website. Half a cup of baking soda mixed with 4 cups of white vinegar and one cup of water in a one gallon plastic bag. Put the bag into a pitcher and combine.
Instead of the one gallon bag, I had a bigger one that I got in an order. I'll use that. I mixed everything up like the instructions said, but it didn't look like enough. Because of the big bag, I had room to do a double recipe. Why not?
I found out why not when I got to my bathroom. The plastic bag was leaking. Yeah, I guess the company who bought the bag didn't buy high quality bags. I poured the liquid into the pitcher, went to get the gallon bag, and threw the leaky bag away. There was too much liquid to fill the gallon bag, so I didn't add it all. I also knew the shower head would displace the liquid so I tried to estimate.
With rubber bands in my pockets, I climbed the step ladder--two rungs--and went to submerse my shower head. My estimate on how much displacement there would be was very wrong. Baking soda and vinegar went every which way, including on the front of me, the step ladder, and my shoes.
But I got the bag over the shower head. I got it fastened with the rubber bands, although I didn't account for trying to get them over a full bag of liquid. More splooshed out and onto me.
The instructions said to make sure the blocked nozzles were submerged and they were. Mission accomplished even if I did have to switch shoes because the ones I were wearing got so wet. I eyed the rubber bands and decided I better add a couple of twist ties, too.
It was a pain in the butt, but if this unclogged my shower head, it would be worth it.
The instructions said to let it soak four hours or overnight. I gave it about twenty-two hours. That should unclog all the jets.
Somehow, through sheer dumb luck no doubt, I got the bag off without dumping it down the front of me. Even my shoes stayed dry. Now for test. How did it work? Are all my nozzles clear?
I turn on the water.
The jet shooting a weird direction is fixed! Yea!
Are the other jets unclogged? No. No, they are not.
Brutal disappointment. For this amount of effort and mess and getting soaked, the damn instructions should work. I checked multiple times to ensure all the nozzles remained submerged in the banking soda/vinegar solution and they had. Why isn't my shower head unclogged?
I'm about ready to just buy another shower head rather than mess around with this one again. Am I the only one dealing with this? Does this method work for other people? I bought brand new baking soda to make sure it would work and everything.
Counting this method as a 99% fail. It gets 1% for fixing the weird jet angle I was dealing with.
