gross toilet ! How to get rid of limescale

98sidney

I moved into my council place and the previous owner who was unable to clean house left a unsightly toilet for me up and down, and as council were doing up bathrooms in 2 years time they wouldnt sort it. I harpic poured a half a bottle done it left it overnite and in morning it removed parts of it, so kept using it took a few weeks but it finally got rid of it. Council sent a man to resurface bath for me and was told by him he use to do the toilets to but council had stopped it to save money. I asked how much it cost to professionaly clean it, reply was £8 wish I had known that or been giving the mans no by the council.

Maz

Hello everyone,

My daughter lives in Dorset and when she moved into her current house, the bottom of the toilet was practically black. Vile, I know!

Since then she has tried every know toilet cleaner on the planet to clean it. The problem seems to be thickly encrusted limescale that every stain clings to. She's very environmentally aware and doesn't want to go down the harsh chemicals route. She's very sensitive to chemicals anyway, as she has asthma and eczema. I've sugested borax and similar stuff but nowt seems to work!

Has anybody else had this problem and what did you do to rectify it?

suzywoozy_3

I'm working on this atm. I have had no success with vinegar and even chemical tablet things you leave over night. What I have resorted to is literally scrubbing it away with a pumice stone. Working but very very slowly. I try and do a bit each week - half an hour at a time listening to a radio4 comedy.

Maz

suzywoozy wrote: »

I'm working on this atm. I have had no success with vinegar and even chemical tablet things you leave over night. What I have resorted to is literally scrubbing it away with a pumice stone. Working but very very slowly. I try and do a bit each week - half an hour at a time listening to a radio4 comedy.

Found this on a webiste just now -

The best way is to first of all drain your toilet bowl. You can do this by using a toilet brush backwards and forwards continuously until the water lever goes right down or putting a mop down there to soak the water up. Now you have a water less bowl make up a potion of 500mml of white vinegar and put in two rounded scoops of bicarbonate soda(this will bubble) Pour around the bowl and leave for an hour. Once it ahs soaked in get your toilet brush and give the bowl and good brush and you should see the scale coming away. If you have any stubborn bits of scale, get your gloves on and use a pummice stone on the scale. Pummice stones are great for eliminating scale and will not scratch your toilet bowl.When you are done pull the chain.

Mellika

I had the same problem not long ago. In fact, only got it fixed a few days ago!

Here's what I did: Emptied the bowl of ALL the water, sprinkled borax on the brown stains and just scoured away.

It's a lot quicker if, before using the borax, you have a go at it with an old knife. Then use the borax + scourer to get rid of the leftover bits.

chunky79

Be careful not to damage the bowl with a knife as it can scratch it, sorry if stating the obvious. Personally i had this in here when i first got house. I am not a big one for chemicals and the one thing that shifted it was harpic blue. I put it down overnight scrubbed next morning with Toilet brush and it 90% cleared it, same next night, all gone. I know she doesn't want to use chemical so i thought i would post this as a lsat resort it was mine.

lil_me

Work out the cost of a new pan, depending on the type might not be worth the spending a fortune on loads of different chemicals, we paid £15 from a builders merchants type place for our last one, stuff the scrubbing if that's all it costs IMO.

Borax can be toxic if inhaled so be careful. Agree emptying it is much better when it comes to cleaning disgusting pans.

VickyA_2

There's a new Harpic product in a black bottle that claims to shift limescale which costs about £1.50. DH was most impressed when it actually did on our loo as we'd used most other things (we hadn't tried the borax thing though).

[Deleted User]

Agree with above posts.

Try and empty the toilet water trap of as much water as possible. Refill with the cheapest cola you can find and leave over night.

Cola has phosphoric acid in and this should attack some of the lime scale.

Vinegar has ethanoic (acetic) acid in and this too is a weak acid and attacks lime scale.

Good luck

Poggie123

We had the same problem with the loo when we moved here and I found the best thing to shift it was those blue kettle descaler sachets (Oust?). Not very environmentally friendly but after 2 sachets overnight and a bit of a scrub with the loo brush it was sparkly again.