Tarnished chrome taps

cyantist

Our bathroom taps (bath and sink) are badly discoloured, kind of mottled and tarnished. You can tell at some point they were chrome but I have no idea what the previous owners did to them to make them look so awful.

Is there anything I can use on them to make them look better?

I don't even like the taps and they were probably cheap, but the bath is tiled in place and so to change the taps would require removing a lot of tiling, and then no doubt having to retile the whole bathroom when a couple break. Either that or we smash a hole in the bathroom wall from the other side and access the taps that way!

e13

I've not tried it, but I think you're supposed to be able to use aluminium foil to get chrome back to it's normal self.You're meant to be able to dip it in water and then sort of scrub carefully. It is a plating though, so if they've burnt through the plating to the main metal beneath, it may not be mendable.

Slinky

Sounds as though the chrome plating has worn off rather than it being tarnished. The more you try and 'clean' it, the worse it's going to get.

Jamiesmum

Vinegar and baking soda if you've got them in your house...not a magic cure but it worked for my taps. They hadn't been cleaned in years when I moved in. I heard lemon as well, but obviously it could just strip it down more.

Edit to add - only lightly though, don't scrub them. I dipped the cloth and rubbed round the taps.

ejhamil

Mine had limscale on it so I put Harpic Limescale remover on it. UGH, it tarnished the chrome and stripped the chrome from chrome waste. There is no warning on the bottle apart from not using on stainless steel toilet bowls. I've read online that this has happened to other people. I've written to complain. As there is no warning I think they should be liable for replacement. I have two matching taps! 

Tink_04

My letterbox on my door is like this now on the outside. I have had the front door 3 years and I’m a bit upset it looks this shoddy already. 

Mistral001

The previous owner just never cleaned the taps properly if at all.  I have some old chrome plated taps in an old out house which have never been cleaned since they were installed maybe 50 years ago.  I took them off and wire-brushed them with a wire brush attachment on an electric drill.  I got them bright and shiny using this method and they looked great compared with what they were like before, but there were patches  of chrome missing and while looking great for an outhouse, not good enough for indoor.   

My taps really needed to be sandblasted and re-chromed to make them bathroom grade.  This I image would be a simple job for a  professional.  Such work is done regularly by firms refurbishing chrome parts from classic and vintage cars, so perhaps a ring around such companies would get you what you want.