How limescale ends up in your toilet? In many areas, tap water is known as hard water because it carries dissolved minerals like calcium and magnesium. When hard water evaporates, it leaves behind minerals that react and form a hard, chalky-like buildup known as limescale.
How to prevent limescale build-up in your loo. To maintain your sparkling toilet, it is recommended that you regularly do a white vinegar wash – once a week should be enough. You can do this by adding 4 cups of white vinegar to the toilet bowl and then letting it sit overnight before flushing it in the morning.
To help prevent limescale buildup, it is important to descale your appliances on a regular basis. This can be done with a commercial descaling solution or a homemade vinegar and water solution. With a little bit of effort, you can keep your appliances running like new.
If you get brown stains in your toilet bowl, the good news is that it's not caused by anything that you, ahem, do in the bathroom. It's actually due to high concentrations of minerals in hard water, like calcium, iron, and manganese, that build up inside the toilet bowl over time, according to Hunker.
Citric acid
More importantly, it's probably even more effective than vinegar for getting rid of that brown stain in the toilet. Simply pour a kettle of almost boiling water into the bowl, follow up with 250ml of citric acid, and leave it for some hours – preferably overnight. The next day, scrub and flush.
Permanent Solution: Install a CWS Water Softener
A CWS Water Softener not only protects a home from the damaging effects of hard water but also removes the existing limescale that has been building over the years in the pipework.
Best of all, you probably have everything you need to remove limescale in your home already. The citric acid in lemon or acetic acid in vinegar is your best weapon, ensuring a limescale-free bathroom without the need for abrasive chemicals that can damage the finish on your bathroom fittings.
Getting rid of limescale doesn't require expensive cleaning products! Lemon juice and vinegar can help you tackle most of your limescale problems — a win for your pocket and for the environment. Lemon juice and vinegar are both acidic, meaning that they can break down the calcium carbonate that limescale is made from.
Stained Toilets: Limescale and Urine Scale Buildup
A frequent cause of smelly drains and dirty toilets are urine sediments. Urine scale occurs as urine particles build up on the porcelain. As hard water evaporates, it leaves behind calcium and magnesium deposits which combine to form limescale.
That means acidic liquids, like vinegar and lemon juice, naturally dissolve calcium buildup. Scoop out excess fluid from the toilet bowl so you can easily reach the calcium deposits. Pour distilled vinegar or lemon juice over the areas. Let the acidic liquids sit in the bowl overnight.
Use Coke specifically when you need to remove problem stains like limescale or rust. If you want to avoid the risk of tinting your toilet with Coke, a light-colored carbonated soft drink such as 7UP or tonic water will also suffice.
For this cleaning task, the more, the merrier, pour vinegar (about 1 litre) and a few cups of bicarb will work fine. Give the solution a mix until you have a paste. Then, add it to the toilet bowl and leave it to soak for as long as possible, at least an hour.
“Most toilet bowl stains appear in hard water areas, so it's important to remember that bleach won't work, and you will need to use an acid-based product such as limescale remover. While bleach doesn't get rid of limescale, it does make it invisible which blends in with the colour of the toilet bowl.
Fortunately, limescale is relatively easy to control because calcium carbonate is soluble in acidic solutions. It can be removed with almost any type of acid, though the one you choose will probably be dependent on the degree of the problem.
When cleaning a toilet bowl, WD-40 works by softening the rust and lime deposits, so they can be easily wiped away. You don't need to use much of it. Simply spray on the affected area, wait a minute or two and brush it away with a regular toilet brush.
Without getting too sciencey, vinegar is great for removing limescale from a toilet because it's acidic. The acid in vinegar breaks down the calcium carbonate that makes up limescale, as well as killing bacteria in the process.
Harpic 100% Limescale Remover has been specifically designed to dissolve 100% of limescale and kill 99.9% of bacteria in your toilet bowl.
spraying the effected area with undiluted white vinegar. creating a mix of white vinegar and borax to scrub affected surfaces. lime water and water in a 50:50 ratio. Baking soda.
Limescale is normally white, but the mineral deposits in the toilet such as iron, calcium, magnesium and lime will turn the limescale brown or green. The brown marks in your toilet won't go away by themselves, you'll need to give them a thorough cleaning.
Cleaning with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar in the bathroom can work really well. To clean your toilet with vinegar, pour a cup of vinegar in the toilet bowl and let sit overnight. The next morning, sprinkle a little baking soda into the bowl, scrub, and then flush clean.
Use Vinegar & Baking Soda
White vinegar is a natural solution that can be utilized to dissolve calcium buildup. Sitting overnight, you will be able to remove lime buildup from the drain while avoiding the harsh chemicals in traditional drain cleaners. Avoid putting any store-bought chemicals down the drain.
Calcium compounds in the water stick to faucets, kettles, shower heads and inside toilet bowls. You can tell if you have a limescale problem if the stains are rough to the touch and regular toilet cleaners don't remove them, even with vigorous scrubbing. To remove limescale, you'll need to go the extra mile.