How to Remove Limescale

If you live in a hard water area, ridding your home of limescale can seem like a never-ending battle. But few homeowners actually realise just how these mineral deposits can damage their households, costing them money and wasting their valuable time.

Here is everything you need to know about this home invader.

What is Limescale?

You probably know what limescale looks like after seeing it around your taps or losing a few kettles to that furry substance, but what exactly causes it? Here’s the science bit… Rain water is naturally soft when it falls from the sky, but once it reaches the ground, it then passes through numerous types of rock like chalk and limestone.

Here, it picks up calcium and magnesium minerals, which work together to change the water’s composition. As soon as you heat this now-hard water at home, either in an appliance or through your heating system, those minerals turn into limescale and cling to whatever they can.

How does limescale affect you?

Aside from the endless number of hours you’ll spend cleaning time, homeowners often think these hard water deposits aren’t negatively affecting their households. This is rarely the case.

Below are just some of the ways in which limescale can make your life more difficult.

Heating System

The hard white crusty substance and spotting around your shower and sink is just the limescale you can see, which means there’s a lot more building up inside the heat exchanger in your boiler and water heating pipes.

Small appliances

However annoying, you can physically remove some of the deposits inside your kettle with some time and elbow grease, but you can’t do that with an expensive coffee machine or steamer.

Big appliances

Washing machines and dishwashers are expensive appliances that spend their lives heating water, which means households in hard water areas are guaranteed damaging limescale build-ups and possible breakdowns.

Blocked showerheads

If you’re living in a hard water area and notice your shower water isn’t running as smoothly as it should, the shower head is probably clogged with limescale. Who wants to shower under a trickle of water?!

Ruined décor

After fitting your new bathroom, you may notice everything begins to look grubby quite quickly. This is a sign of limescale, which not only means a lot of cleaning time, but also runs the risk of new fixtures being scratched when scrubbing the limescale away.

How do I get rid of limescale?

There are a number of ways in which homeowners will try to get rid of a damaging limescale build-up.

Cleaning products

Supermarkets stock specialised products that remove visible mineral build-ups on surfaces or lessen the effect of hard water on larger appliances, like Calgon for your washing machine. This can be expensive, time consuming and not entirely effective.

Homemade solutions

There are also home remedies, such as lemon juice or vinegar that can be effective when it comes to removing limescale that has already built up on taps or in showers.

Limescale filters

These devices can be attached to individual appliances, reducing the presence of calcium and magnesium in hard water before it enters the machine.

Magnetic softeners - do they work?

Companies claim that magnetic softeners can treat hard water effectively and prevent limescale build-ups, but the truth is there is no reliable research to back this up. Water softeners using ion exchange are the only proven way to remove calcium and magnesium from your water.

Removing limescale from your kettle

Manually descaling your kettle is the only effective option once limescale appears – something that soft water users just don’t have to worry about. Not only that, but soft water actually makes a better cup of tea. Just ask your local Kinetico expert to prove it to you.

How to prevent Limescale long term

Softening the water at the point it enters your home is the only long-term, hassle-free and permanent solution to eradicating limescale.

Water softeners stop the problem before it happens. They remove limescale-causing minerals from hard water at the entry point to your water system, preventing them from causing damage.

This means you’ll automatically have soft water running through your home, ensuring appliances have a longer life, pipes and heating systems can run more efficiently, and your bathroom and kitchen continue to look amazing.