Shower Screen & Bathroom Glass Restoration

If your shower screen has gone permanently cloudy and no cleaning product touches it, the glass is not dirty. It has been etched. London water is hard, and over time the mineral content bonds chemically into the surface of the glass — at which point it is part of the glass, and no cleaner, however aggressive, will remove it.

This is why people replace shower screens that did not need replacing. Restoration removes the etched layer and takes the glass back to genuinely clear.

Why cleaning stops working

New glass has a smooth surface. Every cleaning cycle with an abrasive product, and every hard-water drying cycle, roughens it very slightly. That microscopic roughness gives limescale more surface to key into, so deposits build faster and bond harder, so the cleaning gets more aggressive — and the cycle accelerates.

By the time a screen looks permanently milky, there is usually both bonded limescale and a network of fine scratching from the cleaning itself. Both are surface damage. Both polish out.

What we restore

• Frameless and framed shower screens and enclosures
• Bath screens and wet-room panels
• Bathroom mirrors with edge damage and desilvering-adjacent surface marking
• Glass basins, shelving and splashbacks
• Scratches from rings, tiles, cleaning tools and dropped items

The process

The screen stays in place. We mask and protect the surrounding tiling, tray and fittings, then work through a wet-polishing sequence — progressively finer compounds, surface kept cool and wet throughout — until the etched layer is removed and optical clarity is restored.

Heat control matters more here than almost anywhere. Shower glass is toughened, and toughened glass under localised heat can distort or, at worst, fail. This is precisely the job where a DIY kit or an inexperienced operator causes an expensive problem, because the failure is not gradual — a toughened panel that goes, goes completely.

A typical single screen is a few hours. The bathroom is fully usable the same day; there is no curing or drying period.

Protective treatment

Restoration returns the glass to clear, but the water is still hard. We can apply a hydrophobic protective coating to the restored surface, which causes water to bead and run off rather than sit and evaporate. That does not eliminate limescale, but it substantially slows its return and makes routine cleaning far easier.

With a coating and a squeegee used after showering, a restored screen typically stays clear for years rather than months. Without either, it will re-etch on the same timescale it did the first time.

Cost against replacement

Replacing a frameless shower enclosure means a bespoke toughened panel, often with custom drilling for the hinges, plus removal, disposal and installation — and a real risk of damaging tiling on the way out. Lead times of two to three weeks are normal.

Restoration is typically 20–30% of that, done in a single visit, with no disruption to the bathroom beyond the day itself. For a bespoke or unusual panel, where a replacement would need to be manufactured to order, the gap is considerably wider.

When replacement is the right answer

If the panel is chipped or cracked, it needs replacing — those are structural and restoration is not appropriate. If a mirror has desilvered, that is failure of the backing behind the glass and cannot be reached from the front. And if the etching has gone unusually deep after many years of aggressive chemical cleaning, we will tell you honestly whether the result will justify the cost.

Send photographs, ideally taken with the screen dry and lit from the side. We will tell you what you are dealing with before you commit to anything.

Across London

Hard water affects the whole of London, and shower screen restoration is one of our most requested residential services. We work across Chelsea, Kensington, Richmond, Clapham, Wandsworth, Islington and the surrounding areas, and handle multi-unit work for developers and managing agents on new-build and refurbished apartment blocks.