How To Remove Hard Water Stains From Toilet Bowl 

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Before flushing muriatic acid down your drain, I would recommend neutralizing the acid with some baking soda. If you read the directions on the back of the muriatic acid bottle that is one of the steps when cleaning concrete to keep the acid from continuing to etch your concrete.

I bought some brick acid today (10% hydrochloric acid) and it has produced a showroom result after five hours' soaking and only a little elbow grease. Excellent advice, thanks. I don't have a wet vac so I simply removed 90% of the water with a scoop and it worked fine with that much dilution. Great stuff ... I'll do this a few times a year and not feel like I'm living in a slum any more!!

The pumice/scrub stone is probably one of the worst things I've tried. It cleaned the surface, but left the enamel scratched, ever so slightly (hardly noticeable). But, the scratches only allowed the toilet bowl to catch minerals even better, and in the short time, it was worse off than before. Ended up having to change the toilet bowl altogether. GO WITH THE SCRUB STONE AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

did that professionally in the greater LA area, 3 years, for a really well run company known as 7 step. we used HCl , industrial strength. you did it correctly, and, yes, gotta be patient. . well done

The best most genuine video on the topic. I rent a house and all of the toilets are super hard to clean. So now I know what to do. Thanks.

thanks mate, worked a treat. i left my HCL acid in for 30 mins with a couple of scrubs with the toilet brush during soaking. came up like new.

This works, my toilet was really bad. Now it's clean like brand new. Thank you.

Glad to find out about how to remove the water from toilet!! I then used a product called Whink a rust remover. Let it sit for a bit then used a scrub brush and old toothbrush to remove stain.

It's better to use vinegar, and leave it for overnight or 12+ hours. The reason why is pretty simple to comprehend. If you use acids that are too acidic, you run the risk of causing 'pitting' in the porcelain's glaze surface. And once inside those little pitting holes, stains can be significantly more difficult to remove. In short, the stronger acids run the risk of eating away the protective glaze surface, thereby making much more difficult to clean later.

I found cleaning the inside of tank 1x to 2x a year helps keep the toilet bowl cleaner from this happening. I do this when the seasons change, as my reminder.✌💜

@CleaningHowTo Don't have a wet vac so ladelled the water out then used paper towel to soak up the last of the water. I used good eye protection, mask and gloves. Then used TR50 Brick, Tile & Paver Cleaner (1 litre for 30AUD - Australia) - it's bright pink. Where stains were higher on the side of the bowl I dipped toilet paper into it and stuck it over the stains. Left it for 45 mins and one previously very stained bowl is now dazzling white! Thank you so much for this brilliant solution - excellent video - short and sweet and covered all bases 👍👍👍

Thanks so much for the video! Thought I needed a new toilet. Went to the hardware store and asked for brick acid or acid to remove buildup in the toilet. It works like a bomb!

Thank you! I've been using pretty much every cleaner in the supermarket which promised to remove everything under the sun and been up to my armpits in the bowl with green scouring pads for months trying to remove staining on our loo but nothing worked. I used about a half pint of brick cleaner and in about 5 mins tops it looked good as new - only took one go! For those without a wet vac, I used the loo brush as a plunger to force most of the water out the U bend then a bit of kitchen roll sopped up the rest. Thanks again, I'd never have thought to use brick cleaner in a loo.

You really know how to properly explain stuff. Thank you

I had a nastier buildup of this stuff than the toilet in the video and this ABSOLUTELY WORKED for me using muriatic acid from Lowes! Thank you and God bless!

Worked perfectly and looks brand new! Super satisfying. I had to hand scoop the water out with a shot glass first however 😂 thank you king

This works a charm. Thanks for the advice

That was awesome, I'm impressed and will do that same procedure tomorrow!! Thanks!

this worked perfectly thank you!!!

I was so embarrassed about the stains in the toilet that I was about to get a new toilet! Thank goodness I found this on RU-vid. I used distilled vinegar ( didn’t fancy using strong acid) which did take a couple of goes to get it clean at the bottom and a few goes to cover underneath the rim but it’s worked brilliantly! It cost me just under £10 to buy 2x 5 litres of vinegar for 2 toilet bowls and I haven’t opened one of them - pretty sure that’s quite a saving on a new toilet🤷🏼‍♀️ Thanks so much for the tip and video

You sir, are fekkin genius!! When we moved into our house 21 years the loo was already worse than the one in your video. We decided to live with it, thinking we change it one day. Then I found your video. 30 years of calcium gone in half an hour!! If you ever come to Australia I owe you a beer!!

Turn the container on it's side when you pour it in. That way it doesn't gurgle and splash all over when pouring.

Thank you my friend, I've been trying everything on my toilet for ages, saw this video and it's spotless now - THANK YOU!!

The spray-on CLR worked for me. I had to do it twice to get it all. The toilet is an original in a house built in 1956.

Not gonna lie, that yellow coloured wood-grain toilet seat really grosses me out.

NICE WORK I used citric acid ( fruit canning powder ) this weekend on my kids toilet bowl. Lowered the water and sprinkled / poured it in. Worked a treat. Let it sit all afternoon, few lazy brushes just to stir it up, then rinsed it away. It's an old home and nothing has touched the brown & yellow stains in the bottom of the bowl. Looks like new white proceline now. Also tried it on some bathtub age spots, grey. Let it soak under some paper, and took those away too.

Thank you so very much for showing that’s what I need to do to all my toilets I got three of them thank you very much🥰

Most helpful toilet cleaning video on the internet.

This stuff is commonly called muriatic acid in the states. You can also find 45% white vinegar (which is 9x more concentrated than standard white vinegar which is 5% acetic acid) which works as well. I've also used CLR which works really well.

Never heard HCl being called "brick acid." The acid is so strong that you don't need to suck out the disgusting contents of the toilet and corrosive vapor into the vacuum. Just add concentrated acid straight into the toilet, close the lid and let it all react away. Add some more if needed. The stone is brown because it has inclusions of rust and organic material in it. Good advice about brushes when dealing with chemicals.

Thanks for this video! My toilet is new again.

THANK YOU!!! I was also about to get a new toilet because I was embarrassed and had tried every cleaner known to man to try and clean it. I can across your video and went out right away and got some Muriatric Acid at WalMart and followed your instructions and presto!! A brand new, clean toilet!!! I wish I could attach before and after pics.

Try balsamic vinegar with 4 denture cleaning tablets, leave overnight. A plastic bulb siphon will remove the water. I left the water and it works very well. You might use a tree branch to clean off the limescale in places that the brush doesn't get to, have a plastic bag handy to put it in afterwards.

I actually bought this product at Walmart and I can say this person knows what they are talking about. It worked like magic ✨ Great job whoever made this video. For anyone reading, I highly recommend this video.

WOW Truly amazing job and Thank you for sharing this 👍🚽👍🚽👍

Hey thanks for the tip, I don't have a wet/dry vac so just added hydrochloric acid to the bowl and left it for 30 mins, the scale lifted off like a scab! all looking good as new, not my loo either, Just did an end of lease clean!

The safest way I've found to remove hard water deposits and soap scum is citric acid, for what was done here would take about 1/4 cup in as little water as possible and letting it stand for a few hours. I bought five pounds of food grade citric acid for $25 and if just used for cleaning like this would last years, an added benefit is you can mix it with baking soda to make nacho cheese from block cheese.

I was going to say '''How on earth does a toilet get that dirty in the first place ?'' but looking at other comments I can see that your advice in required ... Well done !

Denture Cleaning Tablets . It's working very well , too.

I found the combination of vinegar and CLR worked quite well as well. But you need to be able to let it sit for quite a few hours, giving it a swish from time to time to recirculate the unused acid. I've seen that scale come off in actual SHEETS that will crumble without much force. Another method that may be worth trying in extreme cases would involve both acids and bases. Basically, you make a sodium bicarbonate solution/paste with water. Then dab that solution/paste onto the affected surface. Let that set for an hour or so. Then and only then, add the vinegar. This will essentially cause some of the sodium bicarbonate solution to get between porcelain surface and the scale. And when you add the vinegar, the acid in the vinegar neutralizes with the bicarbonate causing bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. Those bubbles will form between the surface of the porcelain and scale, and help 'lift' the scale off of the surface of the porcelain.

The water guns that suck water up so you can shoot them (they’re shaped like a tube and usually sold at the dollar store) are also a really easy way to remove the water from the toilet bowl

I use Kilrock which is 100% formic acid. Does an amazing job.

Hydrochloric acid worked like a charm.. Thank you

i used vinegar to clean the limescale from the bowl of mine. use a small jug to remove as much water as possible and use a cloth to remove the rest id you don't have a wet/dry vacuum. the main bowl and under the rim can be cleaned with a bit of bleach spread over the surface with an old pot brush, which is what i use. leave it OVERNIGHT. let it work while you are sleeping rather than stand over it waiting for it to work

I wonder if this would work on porcelain sinks. I do worry about what it might do to the pipes though.

i bought a home with the yellow hard water stain three times as much on this video. I was almost going to change the Toilet. I tried "Works Cleaner" sold in Walmart for $0.99. That did wonders and it dissolved and cleaned it to near new. Lately Walmart doesnt carry it and i have seen it being advertised as available tin Home Depot and other places. Give it a Try and you will be pleased with the cheapest and simplest solution. Because of the strong smell leave the exhaust fan on in the Toilet. Be sure to wear gloves and protective eye wear to prevent splash on your eyes / face.

But is that safe to use on sewerage tanks and the pipes ?. I was told not to use things like that in a septic tank system. We are not in a town system.

You should always neutralize the acid with baking soda before you flush to prevent damage to copper or metal piping!

Not only is vinegar a much less concentrated acid, it is also a much slower reacting acid. It's just going to take a very long time to dissolve away all the lime. You can however speed things up, If you add salt to the vinegar, perhaps a few table spoons, this converts it to Hydrochloric acid which is a much faster reacting acid. However the concentration is unchanged, so the total amount of lime it will ultimately remove, remains the same. It will just do the job faster though. Also chemical reaction rates are temperature dependant, so if you preheat the vinegar or pop an immersion heater in there to warm it, it will do the job faster again.

CLR does this the best, also dissolves the hardened clumps you can't see around the bend.

I have tried many different chemicals to remove the hard water stains from our toilet, and this was the only thing that worked!! Thank you!!

Sanding with size 1000 sanding paper works well. But before, in case of hard water, you will have to use muriatic acid. Totally restored our old toilets.

That’s brilliant! If you don’t have any brick acid under your sink then you can also use any popular descaler product. (The secret is to remove the water first) - Clean toilets look so much nicer don’t they? 👍

Thank you❣

I love a nice clean toilet. I dropped 2 dishwasher tabs down mine yesterday but hubby came home from work n flushed it so it didn't get as long as I would have liked so I'll do it again but overnight.

Coke has worked really well for me, the water is really hard where I live. It causes a lot of calcium build up.

I moved back to my mother’s rental house and found the toilet bowl stain just like this but worse. I have tried everything under the sun and nothing worked, I gave up after a year and plan to replace the toilet. One day out of blue, while cleaning the toilet, as usual, squirt, brush and flushing ( and the stain remains) and out of blue, my neighbor called and needed help to the ER so I left the house super fast without flushing. Almost 10 hours later, I returned home and flushed the toilet, I can’t not believe my eyes… the stain were gone… the BEST unintended consequence; the toilet were like new, the stain were GONE!!! so very happy to not find any marks that made by the metal scraper I was using. So, try it, leave Lysol Advance toilet bowl deep cleaning solution in for a day and hope you have the same result! (I would put in little more solution as usual and my water supply is soft water).

Knowing my u-bend holds about 2l, I just dump 300mls of straight pool acid (300g/kg HCl) into the water to get the same effect as brick acid. Gone in minutes. I used to use vinegar but it takes forever. With all the additives in the water in my town, I have to do this annually.

Good tip!!!

Thanks for the great video. Went out to Woodies in Cork. Asked the sales person for brick cleaner. Pointed the right to the location. I was tempted to buy the 5L but in the end bought 2 , 1 litre bottles. Only used slightly more than half. Took about maybe 30 minutes and some scrubbing. Almost spotless!! Wonderful !!! Thanks!

if you are concerned with handling strong acids, pickling vinegar is stronger the regular vinegar and won't hurt you.

Forget the harsh acids until you give the vinegar a good shot. Worked brilliantly.

Leaving acid (of any sort) setting on the stain will do no harm AND ease the process. Dump in the acid, then make or have some coffee (washing carefully, of course).

Nice video 👌👌

I used something called Kilrock from the hardware store to do this. Used loo brush to force most of the water out, then pour boiling water in from a kettle, push most of it out again and then add the Kilrock. The higher water temp intensifies the reaction.Leave for an hour or so. One of my toilets was so bad that a whole layer of limescale like an easter egg shell came loose and could be lifted out after the acid had loosened it.

I used to use the Lysol Limescale & Rust remover, and it worked AMAZINGLY - let it soak and ALL that hard crusty crap just wiped away with a gentle swish of the brush. But, not so much anymore lately... I think Lysol has dumbed down the product's effectiveness, cos now, no matter how long I soak or how much product I mix into the standing water, I still gotta carefully scrape and chip away the limescale with a big flat-head screwdriver. (which has limited results in those holes - screwdrivers don't usually handle them 45 degree angles so well). I'm just lucky I have not marked up or damaged the porcelain yet.

Oh yeah! Solid kahit dko ni drain natanggal prin nman hahahaha

I do a vinegar soak once a week, alternate weeks with bleach, never at the same time, seems to work great at descaling and stain prevention.

What's the name of the acid and where can I get it. Good video. Thanks

Very helpful!

Oh my god that’s amazing I’m using baking soda hopefully it works if not all do vinegar

Show the label on the acid. And yes, change the seat.

Probably not a good idea to use muriatic acid if you are on a septic tank system. Try the vinegar first. Deox-C might also be a good choice since it is citric acid (I think). I use it to get rust out of motorcycle tanks.

Would this be safe to use with septic tanks?

Thats amazing

Hi! I'm in England. I can find 36% HCL or 16% one (BOND IT brick acid). Which one should I use? THANKS! We've tried soda, vinegar but neither worked.

If you happen to grow lemons at your house, that’s a great safe acid.

I used harpic tablets and it worked like magic

Oh wao, thank you.

You can get the water out with a cup, bucket and sponge 😊

Although the acid is a very good way to remove scale, you can also use a pumice stone specifically designed for the same thing.. I live in Singapore, where it's much harder to get acid or CLR, so I use the pumice stones and it works well enough... I little touch up every month will keep your bowl stain free. Amazon has them; They're called "pumice stone for toilet cleaning"

Omg, that’s the best flushing toilet I have ever seen! I want to know if your using muratic acid?

Great job! I have a bit of that brown lime scale around the edge of the top of the toilet too. I think you mentioned you were going to show us how to deal with it. Just rub in the acid and wait?

What’s the acid brand?

I splashed brick acid in my eye once, the pain was exquisite.

I have used Lysol CLR (Clorox, Lime, and Rust) for a long time. It works very well and very clean. Then no more production of this item. I Changed to used Lysol Power 10X from Walmart ( $1.99), or Lysol Advanced Power from Costco ( 1 box = 6.99, 4 bottles/box, 1 QT/bottle). I just squeezed a little around the toilet bowl (the holes of the toilet bowl). I left it about 30 minutes, then I brush it out and flush the toilet. It is shinny and new clean toilet. Not need to used a lot of liquid to clean like the one in this video. Perhaps 1 bottle of Lysol Power can be used for about 10 times cleaning toilet bowl. Clean one time toilet bowl is about $0.10~0.20 of the cost of Lysol Power.

For Americans: I have had luck with Blue Dawn dishwashing liquid, the kind with the baby duckling on the label, Mix 1 cup of blue Dawn and one cup of white vinegar in a cheap spray bottle. Spray in toilet, Dawn makes it stout enough to stick up under the rims, let sit overnight and then use the scrub brush, then flush. I use it on my fiberglass shower stall and jacuzzi tub as well.

What should one do if the limescale is above the water? My toilet has these grey stains under the rim and on the "shelf".

A lot of toilets get the anti stick lining it’s baked with when the porcelain is heated it ruins with strong cleaners like This

I had the dribble line all down the back of the bole I tried all sorts but nothing seemed to work to get rid of it then one day I was using one of those razor blade scrapers to clean my shower glass works better than nasty chemicals and I thought it will not work but I will give it a try and using the scraper the crust just fell off I was so pleased I thought I would end up having to have a new bole fitted.

Incredible!

I’m fearful so I always wear my full face respirator and heavy gloves when working with muriatic acid.

About to try this, fingers crossed 🤞The house I working on Is from the 30s and hasn't been cleaned for atleast 10 years! I haven't tried the vinegar yet but I don't have hours to wait! Need to finish this job asap!

And don’t forget when you go to the bathroom late at night / early in the morning that you’ve pour acid into your bowl. Wouldn’t want this stuff splashing on your sensitive areas.

Funny when she said the toilet was rented out 😂,great video though

The environment loves you for this

Like the gent below I was in highly embarresing situation and forced to have people around. this has got me out of jail. One of the best videos I have seen in 15 + years of youtubing. My loo is now pretty much free and frankly I thought it was beyond redemption.

Brick acid is normally Hydrochloric Acid

Isn’t it dangerous to be putting that acid into the sewer system and what effects will it have even after water is cleaned at the water plant?