Bunnings finds: Professional cleaner’s $4 Bunnings secret to sparkling surfaces around the home in seconds

A professional cleaner has revealed the little-known cleaning tool she loves for getting multiple surfaces sparkling clean just by adding water.

Sara Allan from Housekeeping Heroes NSW recommends the $4.40 Bunnings buy for removing limescale from showerheads and rust from drains and toasters.

She loves it because it gets results in seconds without any elbow grease and only needs water added.

Watch the video above.

READ MORE: 10 things in the kitchen you can get clean with lemons

That cleaning product is super fine steel wool, which is found in the painting section of the hardware store rather than the cleaning aisle. It comes in comes in a 100g roll that you can cut small pieces from as needed.

But this steel wool is nothing like those rough scrubbers you have by the kitchen sink for tough washing up jobs.

“It’s so delicate, a lot of people when they think of steel wool they just think of those real abrasive steel wool pads, they don’t actually realise the grade of it [which is super fine or 0000],” Allan tells 9honey Living.

READ MORE: The beverage an expert says will keep your puffer jacket fresh and clean all winter

“But the best thing is, it’s so cheap and the other thing that I love about it is the fact that we’re not exposing anyone or anything to toxic chemicals.

“So a lot of the time, like with rust, for example, a lot of the rust remover products on the market are really toxic so using something like this super fine steel wool, you don’t even need a chemical with it as long as the pad is wet, that’s all you need.”

The best bathroom cleaning hacks that actually work

One tough cleaning task super fine steel wool can be used for is removing limescale and soap scum from shower glass. Allan says it will work as well as One Shot Thick – one of her other favourite products – for cloudy shower screens.

“Although [One Shot Thick] works great as well, the superfine steel wool works just as great with just water and it’s not gonna scratch that glass in any way, shape, or form, either and because it’s so light, it’s just gentle motions. You’re not having to really get in there and scrub it,” she says.

“It just cuts away everything just with ease and it’s brilliant. I can’t recommended it enough.”

READ MORE: Pro cleaner’s clever hack for awkward shower glass spot

On her TikTok account Allan has shown how well super fine steel wool transforms a toaster from rusty to sparkling in 45 seconds. The only thing added is water and she rubs the super fine steel wool lightly over the marks.

She also got a rust and tarnished drain cover sparkling again in 15 seconds, which is much easier and cleaner than the tomato sauce hack some people swear by for this task.

Other cleaning tasks you can use super fine steel wool for are removing marks from cutlery, rust from tools and shining up tapware and sinks.

READ MORE: The best mobile phone plans we’ve spotted this month

However, Allan says the most common task you’ll find super fine steel wool used for is filling in gaps in the home that rodents use to get inside.

“If you pack those gaps with the superfine steel wool, those rodents can’t even chew through it because it’s too abrasive for them to digest… a lot of homeowners do it because it’s cheaper to do then getting things re-bricked and and filled in.”

When used for cleaning super fine steel wool can be reused or you can cut small bits and throw them away afterwards.

“[To reuse] wet it and put it into a Ziploc bag and put it into the freezer and then you can just pull it out when you need to use it again, because then as soon as you wet that with water under like a tap it’s just gonna turn to super fine again and straight away you can use it,” she says.

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.

The one thing you’ll need to be careful of, though, is using the product on the right surfaces. Allan names shower frames that look metal but are actually plastic with a metallic colour coating as one spot not to clean with super fine steel wool.

“So what happens in those scenarios if you use the super fine, if you’re gonna press and rub and rub and rub, you’re gonna remove that fake finish and get down to the plastic part, which is black. So you’re gonna have parts that look silver and then black where you’ve buffed it out,” she says. 

“It’s really only in the new home developments on shower frames that I would probably advise not to use it on, because it’s not real stainless steel.”

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.