De-scaling and de-blocking

antispam246

been looking into this a fair bit and read up on alot of suggested methods, few queries.

Vinegar, lemon juice and pickling vinegar and lime juice for a stronger effect. Specifically, what do I want to be getting for de-scaling? Primarily its for the kettle but I see these methods are effective for other products, dishwasher, washing machine and tap ends.

So, supermarkets own brand stuff, a specific brand, e.g lemon juice, what exactly am i looking for, I'm guessing a bottle of undiluted lemon juice meant for drinking won't be effective?

Again with vinegar, standard brown, malt, white wine? Cheapest and most effective method I'm aiming for.

I want to try several methods and find the most effective ones! Im leaning towards lemon juice for descaling due to vinegar smell.

The same with de blocking drains, is the brand a matter here or can they all be considered the same? E.g soda crystals,

antispam246

Ok, no replies, so update. Tried with bog standard malt vinegar for descaling. Basically did 50/50 with water and covered heating elements, worked perfectly. Boiled twice after to clean and althoguh the smell was present didn't linger too longer. Will try lemon juice next time round but as for effectiveness, spot on.

Also tried vinegar soaked cloth on taps, not as effective but may have needed to leave longer than an hour/half.

Just bought a large vinegar stash from amazon 12x500ml bottles (10%) for £6'ish so that should keep me going.

Stll interested in hearing about drains and methods, specifically tried and tested methods (products).

worn_out_mum

Hello, never posted before in here and I don't have any experience of descaling. I live in Yorkshire and have soft water so limescale isn't a problem, but we do use soda crystals and white vinegar to unblock drains. We use it 50/50, put the soda crystals in first, about 250g. Works a treat on the kitchen drain (food/fat blockage) and the bathroom drain with soap and hair. The kids love watching the volcano! �� hth

System

I just bung in neat vinegar, bring it to the boil and swish it around. Then rinse well next day. It does stink the place out overnight a bit but its effective.

Seakay

I use vinegar in the main - the cheapest possible. Use it in the conditioner tray of your washing machine to soften clothes by getting the last of the soap out and keeping scale down in the machine at the same time. I also bought a cheap filter jug so I don't boil water straight from the tap

good_advice

Hiya, just seen this post or would have replied earlier.
It is white vinegar for cleaning and brown vinegar for chips.

I buy a bottle of white vinegar in Tesco's.
Descale the kettle and shower head with it.
White vinegar in water is good for cleaning windows.
White vinegar and baking soda down the sink to clean dranes.
White vinegar instead of fabric conditioner in washing machine drawer
White vinegar takes the sting out of bee and nettle stings.
White vinegar on spills and stains.

I could go on.....
White vineger is so MSE :money:

I use it lots, can you tell?

antispam246

Thank you all. I got a great deal on white vinegar from Amazon and have being using it alot since for many things. Great on the kettle, also tried lemon juice to compare, both as effective but vinegar cheaper despite the smell.

Managed to unblock shower drain finally, using half cup for baking soda and half vinegar. Didn't seem like it worked but towards the end of my shower it obviously had, just needed flushed through properly I guess.

Anne_Marie_2

For descaling taps with vinegar, either put some vinegar into a plastic bag, and secure onto the tap with something like a rubber band, peg, ties, or soak a cloth in vinegar and wrap round the affected area, you could cover with clingfilm if you like, to save it drying out. Best left for a few hours, or preferably overnight.
I used to buy 5 litre containers of white vinegar from a Chinese supermarket, which was the cheapest by far, other than that cheapest vinegar from Asda, Tesco etc.

rosie383

antispam246 wrote: »

Thank you all. I got a great deal on white vinegar from Amazon and have being using it alot since for many things. Great on the kettle, also tried lemon juice to compare, both as effective but vinegar cheaper despite the smell.

Managed to unblock shower drain finally, using half cup for baking soda and half vinegar. Didn't seem like it worked but towards the end of my shower it obviously had, just needed flushed through properly I guess.

For the future, if you do the vinegar/soda thing on the drain, leave for half an hour then pour boiling water down. Sorts it in seconds.

Ben84

I use citric acid. It's inexpensive when you buy a big bag and it lasts a long time. No smell either. It's renewable and readily biodegradable, just like vinegar, but comes with a lot less packaging to throw out.