Limescale in toilet cistern

[Joeboy]

Up in the North of Scotland we do not have limescale issues. Out here in Turkey we are in a hardwater area. Noticed that both my toilets were continuing to flow after cistern empty as they attempted to refill. Tried a couple of drop in tablets and also calgon which we use in washing machine. Partial success.

Read up online last night and tried a cup of what I had to hand into the cistern which was apple vinegar and a 12 hour soak. Utterly transformed, toilet is doing the full Niagra and filling up faster too and instastopping. Well worth knowing.

[Oldgreybeard]

Up in the North of Scotland we do not have limescale issues. Out here in Turkey we are in a hardwater area. Noticed that both my toilets were continuing to flow after cistern empty as they attempted to refill. Tried a couple of drop in tablets and also calgon which we use in washing machine. Partial success.

Read up online last night and tried a cup of what I had to hand into the cistern which was apple vinegar and a 12 hour soak. Utterly transformed, toilet is doing the full Niagra and filling up faster too and instastopping. Well worth knowing.

I used to use commercial grade acetic acid (very strong vinegar in effect) and that worked very well, but over time it did leach the zinc out of brass fittings I found. Someone on another forum back then suggested using phosphoric acid, as it doesn't harm most metals and I found that worked every bit as well at getting the limescale off, but didn't attack the brass fittings.

Although we have a water softener here, the kitchen tap still delivers cold hard water so we still get limescale staining on the worktops and around the end of the tap nozzle. I've been using diluted (about 30% strength) phosphoric acid to get rid of the limescale and haven't seen any problems so far with it tending to attack anything. Should be safe enough, as it's one of the main flavourings in Coke, I believe. Easy to buy, as it's used for converting rust.

As an aside, our hall, kitchen and bathroom flooring is made from Turkish "limescale". I bought three pallet loads of large format travertine "tiles" from a quarry in Bilecik, Turkey. Bargain, even after paying the haulage cost from Turkey the cost was still less than a third of the cost of buying exactly the same crema nuova travertine from Topps.

[Stinsy]

Growing up in south east England that was a several times a year chore. The “hack” is to manually hold the ball-cock down so the water level is an inch higher than normal before putting the vinegar in. Leave overnight…

In our family it was the remnants of a pickle jar rather than your fancy “apple cider vinegar”…

[Joeboy]

Up in the North of Scotland we do not have limescale issues. Out here in Turkey we are in a hardwater area. Noticed that both my toilets were continuing to flow after cistern empty as they attempted to refill. Tried a couple of drop in tablets and also calgon which we use in washing machine. Partial success.

Read up online last night and tried a cup of what I had to hand into the cistern which was apple vinegar and a 12 hour soak. Utterly transformed, toilet is doing the full Niagra and filling up faster too and instastopping. Well worth knowing.

I used to use commercial grade acetic acid (very strong vinegar in effect) and that worked very well, but over time it did leach the zinc out of brass fittings I found. Someone on another forum back then suggested using phosphoric acid, as it doesn't harm most metals and I found that worked every bit as well at getting the limescale off, but didn't attack the brass fittings.

Although we have a water softener here, the kitchen tap still delivers cold hard water so we still get limescale staining on the worktops and around the end of the tap nozzle. I've been using diluted (about 30% strength) phosphoric acid to get rid of the limescale and haven't seen any problems so far with it tending to attack anything. Should be safe enough, as it's one of the main flavourings in Coke, I believe. Easy to buy, as it's used for converting rust.

As an aside, our hall, kitchen and bathroom flooring is made from Turkish "limescale". I bought three pallet loads of large format travertine "tiles" from a quarry in Bilecik, Turkey. Bargain, even after paying the haulage cost from Turkey the cost was still less than a third of the cost of buying exactly the same crema nuova travertine from Topps.

There is a very coolly named village 'Pasapinari' that we drive through on the way to the Aiyden eye clinic. It is very much an aggregates production town, couple of good sized factories. Out the North side of the village is a quarry as seen from the roadside and they have very cleanly cut out these massive sheets of traventine leaving these geometric spaces as if a god picked up his playblocks and moved on. I'll try and remember to stop and photo it in December when we're back.
Examples
https://www.turgutreisrehberi.com/liste ... uklenicisi

https://www.google.com/search?q=Pasapin ... 1lwNr5dlrM

[Joeboy]

Growing up in south east England that was a several times a year chore. The “hack” is to manually hold the ball-cock down so the water level is an inch higher than normal before putting the vinegar in. Leave overnight…

In our family it was the remnants of a pickle jar rather than your fancy “apple cider vinegar”…

Top end here pal!

[Oldgreybeard]

There is a very coolly named village 'Pasapinari' that we drive through on the way to the Aiyden eye clinic. It is very much an aggregates production town, couple of good sized factories. Out the North side of the village is a quarry as seen from the roadside and they have very cleanly cut out these massive sheets of traventine leaving these geometric spaces as if a god picked up his playblocks and moved on. I'll try and remember to stop and photo it in December when we're back.

It makes for fantastically practical flooring we've found. Always looks good even if we haven't cleaned it for a while. The stuff is also a good conductor of heat, and being laid directly on top of our heated (and cooled) concrete floor slab it does a good job of transferring heat. IIRC, the travertine ended up costing me around £14/m² in 2015. At the time Topps wanted about £40/m² for the same filled, honed and polished stuff. The chap we dealt with at the quarry was great, too, he included a few extras in every pallet load to make up for breakages, but the packing was so good that none were broken in transit. They stacked them vertically on the pallets, with thin (about 10mm thick) sheets of polystyrene between every 600mm x 300mm tile.

Only slight issue was that all the shipping labels were in Turkish, which caused a slight problem with the "final mile" courier who delivered them with a small truck with a tail lift. Luckily our phone number was on the label so they rang me to make sure they could deliver to the right address.

The stuff is literally limescale, I believe, created when hot or volcanic springs of mineral water bubble out of the ground and leave the limescale behind. The patterning comes from the bubbles and the mix of other metals/minerals that flowed up through the original lakes of bubbling mineral water, thousands of years ago.

[Mr Gus]

Joe, im thinking that you went down the spam internet worm-hole matey, ..likely over exposure to internet pop ups & the like "reduce belly / melt fat, eat/drink this one thing every night" ..etc etc.

Your apple cider vinegar is a pricey number, I use cheap old White vinegar (with bicarb) to rid containers of smells, stop the wife moaning about bacon burns in frying pans (a lifting paste left overnight & gentle scourer) .. just vinegar in beer brewing kit cleaning of stainless steel, as well as dunking & leaving shower heads in, kettles etc.
generally we have between 5 & 15 litres of the stufffor decalcification & high but nigh on harmless acidity as a brute force fixer.

As an east anglian, the water here is harder than a fella on a double dose of viagra, ...the 1980's HW tank & pipes were filled with calcified junk, I took a pipe out to check in the d/stairs loo to check, furry artery clogging, hot water tank was as expected...

Now clean as a whistle, from what others scoff at a low voltage pulsing current wrapped round the in pipe.
The permutti unit (£3 new at auction) was bound & covered with a foam pipe insulater segment, ..it caused a lot of crap to be spat out of taps for 18 months plus, since then no problem, i dip the shower head in vinegar every 3 years or so just to keep the flow A1 from the nozzles, ..before they gummed up in a matter of months, then poured into a bottle for re-use, kettles done via a different bottle, but again only descale every 6 months with vinegar, more if
I can be bothered.I

When it came to a knackered corroded, hw element swap out, the copper tank (had a sacrificial node originally) the element was corroded so far through it shorted, & crumbled upon removal, but the previously calcified tank was as clean as a whistle.

The voltage "seems to" create a slurry state of limescale heavy water, so it still is present on shower tiles etc but thats dried rather than down the drain.
depending on how old your turkish property is, might be time to find a cheap one on turkish ebay they come up every now & again, ..never had a scale jammed cistern since, grit in a syphon fitting, plastic failure etc but that's it.

in fact, 18 yr old daughter was just starting cubs when she experienced plumbing, syphon change, replacement lever valve, cutting copper pipe, smooth, bind with ptfe tape & re-fit ..& check plastic bits compression too..

Hasn't leaked, dripped, or got tight & awkward since, ..she earnt her diy badge for sure.

For you in future, a dry cistern & a plant spray bottle might do the trick as periodic maintainance, I doubt theres much in the way of a silicone "doo-dad" you could fit round that part of the kit to hold some white vinegar in situ? ..a thick childs swim cap is what i might try though & see how it holds as a vineg-oir to get in there.

spray bottle for your shower, ..youve got to love vinegary chips to do that though.

Glass cleaner, tile cleaner, stove glass cleaner ...blah blah blah.

[Joeboy]

Joe, im thinking that you went down the spam internet worm-hole matey, ..likely over exposure to internet pop ups & the like "reduce belly / melt fat, eat/drink this one thing every night" ..etc etc.

Your apple cider vinegar is a pricey number, I use cheap old White vinegar (with bicarb) to rid containers of smells, stop the wife moaning about bacon burns in frying pans (a lifting paste left overnight & gentle scourer) .. just vinegar in beer brewing kit cleaning of stainless steel, as well as dunking & leaving shower heads in, kettles etc.
generally we have between 5 & 15 litres of the stufffor decalcification & high but nigh on harmless acidity as a brute force fixer.

As an east anglian, the water here is harder than a fella on a double dose of viagra, ...the 1980's HW tank & pipes were filled with calcified junk, I took a pipe out to check in the d/stairs loo to check, furry artery clogging, hot water tank was as expected...

Now clean as a whistle, from what others scoff at a low voltage pulsing current wrapped round the in pipe.
The permutti unit (£3 new at auction) was bound & covered with a foam pipe insulater segment, ..it caused a lot of crap to be spat out of taps for 18 months plus, since then no problem, i dip the shower head in vinegar every 3 years or so just to keep the flow A1 from the nozzles, ..before they gummed up in a matter of months, then poured into a bottle for re-use, kettles done via a different bottle, but again only descale every 6 months with vinegar, more if
I can be bothered.I

When it came to a knackered corroded, hw element swap out, the copper tank (had a sacrificial node originally) the element was corroded so far through it shorted, & crumbled upon removal, but the previously calcified tank was as clean as a whistle.

The voltage "seems to" create a slurry state of limescale heavy water, so it still is present on shower tiles etc but thats dried rather than down the drain.
depending on how old your turkish property is, might be time to find a cheap one on turkish ebay they come up every now & again, ..never had a scale jammed cistern since, grit in a syphon fitting, plastic failure etc but that's it.

in fact, 18 yr old daughter was just starting cubs when she experienced plumbing, syphon change, replacement lever valve, cutting copper pipe, smooth, bind with ptfe tape & re-fit ..& check plastic bits compression too..

Hasn't leaked, dripped, or got tight & awkward since, ..she earnt her diy badge for sure.

For you in future, a dry cistern & a plant spray bottle might do the trick as periodic maintainance, I doubt theres much in the way of a silicone "doo-dad" you could fit round that part of the kit to hold some white vinegar in situ? ..a thick childs swim cap is what i might try though & see how it holds as a vineg-oir to get in there.

spray bottle for your shower, ..youve got to love vinegary chips to do that though.

Glass cleaner, tile cleaner, stove glass cleaner ...blah blah blah.

Apple cider vinegar is cheap as chips here and the base model so to speak. The rest of the diy hacks, thank you! It's a whole new hard water world for me I'll have a go at the shower screen next.

[Mr Gus]

just remember brown stains from brown stuff, likely including allle cider vinegar, dont use it due to needlessly premium pricing here, & likely the apple cider vinegar marketing board

if your shower screens are glass youll be alright, but for older, neglected plastic likely no way back.

[Joeboy]

just remember brown stains from brown stuff, likely including allle cider vinegar, dont use it due to needlessly premium pricing here, & likely the apple cider vinegar marketing board

if your shower screens are glass youll be alright, but for older, neglected plastic likely no way back.

Gin & Tonic,purely for colour chart reference Gus!