spirit of salts for filthy lav

[Gardener]

Having searched the forum and discovering that old lime scaled lavs are not exclusive to chez nous, I ventured out to find score some acide hydrochlorique and cannot find any.

I have bought a couple of other things that promised to do the job and have failed miserably, (not tried the caustic soda yet)

brico depot, bricorama and castorama are within range as are most super markets, can anyone post a picture or link to where I can find it in France, if not I can get some from Amazon.

It is a very thick crust

[sid]

Hydrochloric acid is available at Castorama, in the cleaning products area. I don't know what it would do to your fosse if you have one.

Have you tried white vinegar? That usually dissolves limescale, although it would be more difficult to soak the deposits inside a WC bowl if it's for the part where the water has run down the rear of the bowl.

[Théière]

It's available in all the brico's yet to find one where it isn't but don't look for spirit of salts as sid said Acide de hydrochloric.

Sid it won't stay low pH for long it will be neutralised by the limescale so won't enter the fosse very acidic if it's given time to work.  Best to plunger out as much water as you can and watch for fumes of course.

NEVER use bleach based products with strong acids unless you want to die!

[Rose (& Greyman)]

I just bought a 5L container from Brico Depot today. In with the white spirit, cleaning type products. I use it for the same thing, with a fosse. I leave it in all day on the assumption that in that time it will have reacted with enough other stuff to be almost inert. It's only 23% to start with. I've never noticed any adverse effects in my fosse.

[sid]

[quote user="Théière"]

Sid it won't stay low pH for long it will be neutralised by the limescale so won't enter the fosse very acidic if it's given time to work.  Best to plunger out as much water as you can and watch for fumes of course.

NEVER use bleach based products with strong acids unless you want to die!

[/quote]

Noted.  [;-)]

[BIG MAC]

Disclean Brick cleaning acid ..does the job...

[Kitty]

I had a similar probem with heavily stained loos in a house that we bought and tried everything.  Someone suggested Coca Cola.  It was a disaster.  It just made the stains a darker brown, Yuk.

It was elbow grease that cleaned them up in the end.

[Théière]

Kitty I thought I debunked that rumour the other year. Boy these cola based urban myths..........

[Théière]

[quote user="BIG MAC"]Disclean Brick cleaning acid ..does the job...[/quote]

Why spend more money on brand named goods in these financially challenging times, Brico hydrochloric is stronger and half the price?

http://www.fhltd.co.uk/page9.htm

[Russethouse]

If there is residue around the bowl afterwards you could try a paste of white vinegar and soda crystals, ( it clings) you may need repeated applications, and a pumice stone may help too

If you do have to send for something from the UK I removed a horrid Lime drip mark using kilrock gel, and determination:-) ...,,I hate lime scale......

Good luck,

[Gardener]

Cillit bang hasn't even made a whimper, so i'm going to try again to find it today. Though they do have a habit in shops locally of putting items that you think would be in one aisle with similar products somewhere completely different just to challenge or confuse the customer :/

[Chancer]

[quote user="Gardener"]Cillit bang hasn't even made a whimper, so i'm going to try again to find it today. Though they do have a habit in shops locally of putting items that you think would be in one aisle with similar products somewhere completely different just to challenge or confuse the customer :/[/quote]

Are you looking on the droguerie rayon? That is where it is most likely to be found.

[Gardener]

Nay, it was in with the paint, next to the white spirit.

The label says to dilute 1:4 but as the bowl already has water in it, can it go in neat or will it fizz and splutter too much?

If it can go into the bowl undiluted, with the water already there how much will I need? I have a litre bottle of it. Gloves and goggles are on standby.

[Russethouse]

If possible open a window, and try not to breath in the fumes too[Www]

I've always used a whole bottle but I suspect my bottles are half the size of yours.....

[Gardener]

I have now put the whole bottle in and I'm amazed

nothing has happened.

The bowl has been scrubbed, left and scrubbed some more and it has barely made a difference; God knows what the last owners ate!

Tomorrow, the water will be drained out and Mrs G will throw everything she's got at it; including the pumice stone suggestion.

[Russethouse]

You might not think its done any good  but with a bit of luck it will have softened it a little (though you might not think so tomorrow!) I've used an old round ended kitchen knife to good effect (keep it for the job) but you do need to be careful if you try this......sometimes it will come off in quite large lumps

The other thing is that when I've tried the spirit of salts solution I left it for 4 or 5 hours.....how long did you leave it ?

I hate limescale ![6][6]

[napoleon]

It's time to tackle this problem with a different method. We had two disgusting looking, scaled wc pans. My wife spent many hours trying to improve them with little effect. One day, while she was out shopping I decided to act.

I had bought several sheets of "wet 'n dry" sanding material that I knew we're in my tool bag. It had originally been used to rub down filler in my rusty car body many years ago. This is perfect to sand off the scale in the wcs., All that is really required is the final burst of bravado to plunge your hands down the loo. After just one hour all the residue was clear leaving a near perfect ,white, glossy surface.

I was quite popular - for a few days. I think that wet n dry is available in Brico.

[Russethouse]

Is it a particularly nice loo ? Because I think the next solution may be a sledge hammer ![;-)][;-)]

[Théière]

Depending on how much water was left in the bowl will have a big difference on the action and it will take time at least a couple of hours. The acid will be neutralised by the lime scale so repeating the process so another bottle preferably 5lt to save repeat journeys.

I seriously would not advise wet and dry abrasion as that will ruin the glaze on the china whereas acid will not and once damaged stains and bacteria will get a nice place to hide and grow.

[sid]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Is it a particularly nice loo ? Because I think the next solution may be a sledge hammer ![;-)][;-)][/quote]

 

[:D]  I'm with you RH !  We replaced one of our WCs with one from Lapeyre and it is pre-treated to repel stains. It's 7 years old now and still sparkling.

 

[Gardener]

All clean now. Mrs G bought some javel tablets from aldi and put three down let them fizz and within hald an hour it was spot less. I think that the limescale must have been affected a bit by the spirit of salts as the tablets on their own haven't made a great difference to the loo upstairs.

We do plan on changing the downstairs bathroom eventually but we have a visitor next week that can't do stairs;

[Russethouse]

My tip would be to try putting one javel tablet down there a week, to prevent the lime until you want to replace the loo....

[BIG MAC]

Because I have a shedload of it which cost me nothing :-)

 

[Théière]

[quote user="Gardener"]All clean now. Mrs G bought some javel tablets from aldi and put three down let them fizz and within hald an hour it was spot less. I think that the limescale must have been affected a bit by the spirit of salts as the tablets on their own haven't made a great difference to the loo upstairs.

We do plan on changing the downstairs bathroom eventually but we have a visitor next week that can't do stairs;[/quote]

Javel only bleaches white so for a short while you won't see any stains but the limescale (apart from what was dissolved by the first use of acid) is still there for the simple reason bleach doesn't dissolve limescale, it cannot as bleach (javel) is a high pH compound the same as calcium carbonate (limescale). The fizz you experienced may be due to the inclusion of washing soda (sodium carbonate) which gives off carbon dioxide as they were tablets rather than the liquid javel. The washing soda (sodium carbonate) will dissolve into the water and cause some limescale to dissolve by ion exchange with the sodium (the same action as in a water softener).

The use of hydrochloric acid will dissolve the limescale away faster than above but the limescale neutralises the acid so you need to repeat the process to keep the acid content high enough.

My tip, would be to ignore RH's tip as you will have a white loo but still full of limescale and rather than waste money replacing it clean it with hydrochloric acid, we do this on a regular basis as the limescale builds up over a 2-3 month period. Don't use harsh abrasives otherwise you will need to replace. Don't use acid's and bleach at the same application or you will produce chlorine gas which is highly dangerous.

 

[Jo]

[quote user="sid"]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Is it a particularly nice loo ? Because I think the next solution may be a sledge hammer ![;-)][;-)][/quote]

 

[:D]  I'm with you RH !  We replaced one of our WCs with one from Lapeyre and it is pre-treated to repel stains. It's 7 years old now and still sparkling.

 

[/quote]

Which would explain why the loo upstairs stains like mad and the newer one downstairs doesn't ! Can I seriously use hydrochloric acid with a fosse? Will it help with the staining? Bleach seems to have no effect, but I don't use much because of the fosse.