Is it OK to regularly clean a toilet with acid?

Joined
21 Sep 2007
Messages
90
Reaction score
0
Location
Sussex
Country
United Kingdom
Just cleaned the brown stains from my toilet bowl by chucking in 100ml or so of Spirit of Salts. It's brilliant, far better than any toilet cleaner product.
Is it OK to do this regularly, or could it cause damage? The toilet is newish with a plastic (multifit?) connector, but the downpipe looks like cast iron. I don't want to be dissolving my pipes!
 
Sponsored Links
these stains:

are they rust stains or bodily waste?

do you have hard water?

how often do you clean the bog with brush and harpic or similar?
 
Sponsored Links
According to a friend of mine bleach doesn't remove dirt, it bleaches the colour out so you can't see it

Typical example is a WC bowl. Made of a very smooth, glazed ceramic
material so that bacteria can't stick & multiply.

Limescale forms, giving the bacteria somewhere to hide & you get stains &
smells. Bleach kills the bacteria & removes the colour so all looks clean.
It can't remove the limescale, so next use starts the cycle over again.

If you use a decent mildly acidic toilet bowl cleaner it keps the limescale
at bay, so bacteria has no place to multiply.

I was told to use this: http://www.jangro-leicester.com/Products/Acidic_Toilet_Cleaner_and_Lime_Scale_Remover once a week and then a Daily cleaner every day.
 
I live in a hard-water area, and I, and people who take my advice, use Parazone Bleach blocks in the cisterns (ordinary scented or coloured blocks do not work). There is a concentrated Harpic product for occasional one-off use, but it does not last for weeks in the cistern like the Parazone block

Amazingly, over a month or so, it dissolves the old limescale out of the cistern, and also the limescale off the toilet bowl. I know of one case where there was a dirt-holding ring at water-level mark in the bowl that ordinary cleaners couldn't shift, and after a couple of months it has gone.

My supposition is that the cistern water contains a weak solution of HCl, and repeated flushing is what does the trick. It is less effective in a guest room loo that is infrequently flushed.
 
I don't have hard water - my kettle has no scale at all on it. The stains aren't bodily waste, they are something in the water. I think it only collects in the toilet bowl because water sits there all the time. The kitchen sink (stainless) goes brownish if I don't clean it for a while.
I probably scrub the toilet bowl every month or two. Daily cleaning with a regular cleaner would probably do the trick, but I can't be bothered with that.
 
is it an oldish house with iron water pipes or an old galvanised tank?

when I lived in Suffolk my water was pumped from a well and left brown silt, but that is most unlikely if you are on mains.
 
It's 1930s and on the mains. The plumbing was all new 4 years ago. New plastic main from the street, and everything in the house.
 
you might consider giving the Parazone blocks a try, they cost about £1.65 for two, post back if it works.
 
TIP: Buy some citric acid, boil a couple of teaspoons in a kettle full and tip it on your limescale, and your limescale will just melt off. I done this and poured it all over the limescale on my taps, works great, cleans your kettle too :)

I'm pretty sure if you don't go mad with a kilogram of salts everytime you use it, the amount of water in the trap will dilute it more than enough to not cause any damage.
 
I'll give them a go. Got to be better than using strong acid, as long as they work.
Does anyone know of a reason why I shouldn't use acid though? I've been thinking I could neutralise it with some bicarb (poured in slowly!) before flushing, should prevent any issues.
 
When I was an apprentice we used to use Cementone Mortar Clean for our council contracts (refurbs) to clear scale from wc pans. Worked a treat in about 1 min :eek: Goggles required :eek: :eek:
 
Isn't there some environmental rule about tipping acid down the drains?
 
@Vicario
I did some Googling on that, and couldn't find anything. That was one of the reasons I asked on here. It says in the bottle that one use is for toilet unblocking, with no mention of environmental issues.
It won't stay corrosive for long, since it will soon react with something, the only worry is what's produced as a result. If I neutralise it with bicarb, it'll be harmless anyway.
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top