Yes, I'm serious! I'm at a loss as to how to clean my toilet. When I moved in here seven months ago, it was sparkly white, and it's getting browner all the time from the mineral deposits. I don't know what to do. Since moving in, I've tried these three products by scrubbing and soaking, and they don't work:

View attachment 42578

Could someone please suggest another product that will work? :fingerscrossed:

The brown deposits are almost certainly cal (chalk) based so try some antical.

 

Cal = lime
Caliza = chalk

 

Try Salfuman(t) - it's basically Hydrochloric Acid so be careful with it.

 

That would have been my next suggestion. It's usually called Aqua Fuerte.

 

Hola

Vim & Ajax powder (yes out of the ark) are still available in Spain - elbow grease and a modicum of water and they both clean to sparkling

Davexf

 

I must admit, I used to either buy domestos (British bleach) from Iceland or Agua fuerte from Mercadona and just put them down the loo every morning - altho someone told me that you shouldnt use those products if you have a septic tank (which we did)

Jo xxx

 

Please don't use this combination.


Acid + bleach (alkali) = lots' of nasty, dangerous gasses !!!!

 

Yes, I'm serious! I'm at a loss as to how to clean my toilet. When I moved in here seven months ago, it was sparkly white, and it's getting browner all the time from the mineral deposits. I don't know what to do. Since moving in, I've tried these three products by scrubbing and soaking, and they don't work:

View attachment 42578

Could someone please suggest another product that will work? :fingerscrossed:

As has been said use Salfumante/Aqua fuerte as this will remove it instantly.

Take care as this stuff is dangerous !, as you asked the question its odds on that you are unaware about it.
Outside in the fresh air pour a couple of cupfulls into a beaker, take this into the toilet and pour around the rim/bowl quickly taking care not to splash.
Leave the toilet for a few mins and then nip in and flush ........... job done.

 

Yes, you can feel it in the back of your throat if you stay in the room. I go back and flush after an hour or so

Jo xxx

Sent from my D5803 using Expat Forum

 

Alternatively we could leave the environment and our health intact and not bother too much about stains in the toilet bowl! These products are strong and have an impact. I know a cleaner here whose lungs bled because of inhaling the fumes from aguafuerte and she supposedly knew what she was doing! As long as we're not talking about stains from excrement I'd put the lid down (as most people said they put the lid down on toilets remembering what was said on an earlier thread about toilets!!) and walk away!

If you feel you must do something about those stains experiment with cleaning vinegar (Mercadona, other supermarkets, hardware stores...) bicarbonate of soda, lemon and rock salt. You'll also need some stout rubber gloves that are used only for toilet cleaning. Look it up on the net. Of course you'll need to invest more time and energy, but ...

 

Over here we've used a "borrador mágico" sponge, but it takes elbow grease and the porcelain has to be somewhat dry. (You can shut off the valve to the toilet and flush to empty the water.) We don't have super-heavy stains, though....

 

Thank you so much for all your suggestions. You guys are awesome! I didn't have time to go shopping to get the cleaners you suggested, so I thought about what many of you said - elbow grease. So I slapped on a glove and got right dirty by sticking my hand in the bowl (toilet flushed, of course ). The stains were made of a thick mineral deposit caking the bowl. It looked dreadful and not at all civil looking! So I took my metal scraper, hoping not to scratch the porcelain. It looked like the porcelain was scratched with blackish-grey scratches. But I kept going anyway. There were some deposits I couldn't get to because of the angle of the scraper, so I took a hard plastic kitchen utensil to get off the rest, which also took off the apparent scrapes from the metal scraper.

So there were no chemicals used, although the disposable plastic glove is not environmentally friendly. I did use bleach to detoxify the kitchen utensil and scraper, which also isn't environmentally friendly. But the solution was as least toxic to me and the environment as possible. In case anyone else has this problem, here's a pic of the tools I used:

I'll reuse the plastic scraper only for the toilet now of course! The metal scraper is clean now and good to go for all the other jobs it does - including cleaning my stove, which was recommended by you guys when I first moved here.

Again, thank you all for your help. You guys rock my world!

 

Pumice stone is the thing for mineral deposits. Despite what you might think, it doesn't scratch the porcelain, just removes the limescale. Environmentally friendly and no risks to your health, either.

 

a soft red brick does the job as well.

 

Don't forget under the rim !
Yes thats where all the germs live, yes they do I have seen all the adds and P & G would not lie. :spit:

 

Agua Fuerte for me, cheapest product too. Wish they sold it in the UK.