How often should you descale your showerhead?

Why bother

Scale blocks the holes and the spray dribbles. A thorough-tier job. Skippable when life's busy, worth it when it isn't.

Why it's a range

Very hard water clogs it in weeks. Soft water can wait the best part of a year.

What the job involves

1. Fill a bowl or a zip-top bag with plain white vinegar (5% acidity) and sink the showerhead face in it, or tie the bag around the head with a rubber band so every nozzle sits under the vinegar. No need to take anything off the wall if you bag it in place.
2. Leave it to soak. Thirty minutes does a routine head; an overnight soak for a properly scaled one. Skip the vinegar on bare brass, gold, or nickel finishes, mind, it can dull them.
3. Scrub the nozzles and threads with an old toothbrush to shift the loosened scale. A dab of baking soda helps on the stubborn bits, and a pin or toothpick pokes out any nozzle that's still bunged up.
4. Rinse with warm water, reattach the head if you took it off, and run the hot tap through it for a couple of minutes to flush the last of the grit out.

Do it yourself, or pay someone?

Yourself, easily. The whole job is vinegar, a bag or bowl, and a toothbrush, no tools if you soak it in place, and the outlay is basically a bottle of vinegar. You'd only ring a plumber if the head's corroded solidly onto the pipe and you're replacing it, at roughly $175 to $451 installed per head (Homewyse, May 2026).

Signs it's overdue

• The spray's gone sideways, some jets shooting off at an angle while others dribble, because the nozzles are bunged with scale.
• Noticeably weaker pressure than the head used to push out.
• White, crusty, or greenish mineral crud built up around the face and the nozzles.

When to start thinking about it

A few days' warning does it. Grumpty grumbles 3 days out, then leaves you alone. Mark it done and Grumpty sets the next one, every 3 months, so you can go back to forgetting it exists.

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