How Do You Clean a Badly Stained Corian Sink?

We have a 16+-year-old motorhome that we’re pleased to report still has a pretty new appearance considering its age. We pride ourselves on taking good care of our home-on-wheels, which is especially important since we live, work, and travel in it full time.

About ten years ago we started to notice that our white Corian sink was beginning to look dingy and was a bit discolored with stains. That prompted us to ask the question, “How do you clean a badly stained Corian sink?”

We asked the right person — our dear friend and fellow RVer, Orene — who offered a tip that worked wonders, and we’ve been using it ever since. We shared this tip in a video ten years ago, but because so many RVs have white Corian kitchen and bathroom sinks, in today’s post we’re once again sharing Orene’s tip for our newer readers and viewers who might not have seen it before now.

So, let’s get to it!

What is Corian?

Corian is actually a brand name for a solid, non-porous surface created by Dupont back in the mid-’60s, and it’s been a very popular sink, countertop, and bench surface ever since.

According to Wikipedia, Corian is made of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate.

What we know for sure is that it’s a solid surface found in the sinks of many RVs, and it tends to stain and discolor over time. In fact, some RVers have told us that they’ve tried everything to clean their badly stained Corian sinks, including Comet and other abrasive cleaning agents (which aren’t recommended… as they can scratch the surface of the Corian), but nothing works very well. Surely the more stained and discolored they get, the more difficult they can be to clean.

We used to use bleach to whiten our Corian sinks, but because bleach is so toxic and smells so terrible, we don’t like using it too much (though it’s still our choice for when we sanitize our onboard fresh water tank). Plus, the caustic nature of the bleach seemed to be making things worse… etching the surface of the Corian and making it MORE prone to staining — NOT what we were after, for sure!

That’s why back in 2011, about six years after taking ownership of our brand new Newmar motorhome, we were looking for a less toxic, but still highly effective, method of keeping our kitchen and bathroom sinks clean.

How Do You Clean a Badly Stained Corian Sink?

This method is proven to work (by us!), and we hope you might find this tip useful for cleaning the Corian (or any other brand of solid surface) sinks in your own RV.

1. Fill your sink with a couple of inches of hot tap water.
2. Add one scoop of OxiClean.
3. Mix the OxiClean with the water, allowing it to thoroughly dissolve.
4. Let the solution sit in the sink for an hour or two.
5. After an hour or two have passed, let the water out of the sink and rinse it out.

That’s it! Now you should have a bright white Corian sink again.

If your Corian sinks are very badly stained and the discoloration rises up the sides of the sink, simply use more water to fill the sink and add a bit more OxiClean as well. You may also need to allow the solution to sit in the sink for a few hours.

Quick Tip: if you don’t have the time to do an OxiClean soak of your sink, but want to brighten it up quickly, try using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Just wet it and use it to gently scrub the surface of the sink. The Magic Eraser is abrasive enough to remove the surface staining and debris, without being so abrasive that it damages the surface of the Corian. In a few quick minutes, and with just a little bit of elbow grease, your Corian sink will look significantly cleaner and whiter. Then, when you have more time, follow up with the OxiClean soak to get it sparkling white.

Can I Clean a Badly Stained Corian Sink in My House?

Yes! As long as a sink is made of Corian (or, again, some other solid surface brand/material), this method should work well, no matter where the sink is located.

Will This Work to Clean a Badly Stained Plastic RV Sink?

We don’t recommend this method for the plastic sinks often found in less-expensive RVs, because there’s the potential that it could damage the plastic. Our suggestion is that you check the manufacturer’s recommendations for cleaning your sink, because it’s possible that using OxiClean in this way could damage the surface of the plastic, making matters worse over time.

Here’s a link to OxiClean in case you’d like to read about it or order it. Our RV is never without a tub of OxiClean, which we also use in our laundry.

And here’s the video we posted back in 2011, demonstrating the successful cleaning of our Corian sink which we’d stained with tea bags, blueberries, and other high stain elements just to see if the OxiClean could handle it. Spoiler Alert — It did!

Conclusion

If you’ve got Corian sinks in your RV or home, give this method of cleaning them with OxiClean a try and let us know in the comments section below how it works out for you!

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