electric kettle- limescale?

[peter]

I have a small electrical kettle (it has a plastic case and metalic heating element at the bottom). I have previously (1 year+ ago) descaled it by putting cheap malt vinegar into it and then turning the kettle on.

On returning from a 2 weeks holiday, I now find that every time I turn on the kettle, there are tiny pieces of black debris falling out from the metallic elements. I left the kettle dry before I went on holiday. Surely can't be (just) lime-scale? I live in London (i.e. hard water error), but normally put brita-filtered water into the kettle for boiling. Other times, I may use half filtered and half tapwater.

What are these black debris? Are they toxic? How can I remove it safely?

[Andrew Mawson]

holiday.

You have probably managed to strip away any plating that was covering the element sheath, which is now corroding.

AWEM

[peter]

What kind of plating would that be? I thought all electrical kettle's heating elements are simply metallic (stainless steel?)

Does it mean my kettle is no good any more to produce any "healthy" drinking water? Can those black stuff be removed with vinegar, acid, etc.?

[Rob Morley]

Probably something like nickel plated copper. Steel would be crap at conducting the heat into the water.

It's the acid that caused the copper to start corroding in the first place ...

[peter]

So I guess I need a new kettle then?

I had only used vinegar (hardly very acidic compared with limescale removal acidic sachets?) a year ago to remove limescale.

Other than buying a different kettle, what tips are there to remove limescale in the future if acid could cause the metal plating to corrode?

[Chris Bacon]

Why bother? Just boil it a few times until the black stuff stops falling off.

It's probably not that, then.

Why bother? Just rinse it out every so often, and make sure any gauze filter is clean (use vinegar, conc. HCl, or etc).

[Cordless Crazy]

Being a DIY forum I reckon you should use a good ole hammer preferably a sledge hammer!! That would sort it out good and proper!

-- Cordless Crazy

[Anna Kettle]

You can get a thing which looks like a scouring pad to put in the kettle which works pretty well. Every so often you take the pad out and bash it around a bit to remove the scale which has adhered to the pad instead of the kettle. Then you put the pad back

Anna

[Rob Morley]

And if the black stuff is formed every time you boil water ...

Probably not the primary cause, but the the original plating was imperfect it most likely accelerated the rate at which it failed.

Because a build up of mineral deposits on the element impedes the heating of water and allows the element to overheat, thus failing sooner.

[Rob Morley]

You might be able to find a replacement element for the old one, but they don't seem common these days and I doubt it's worth it unless the kettle is an expensive one.

The best solution is really to buy a kettle with a concealed element - these don't seem to scale up as fast and they're easier to clean.

[Rob Morley]

I'd forgotten about them, the last time I saw one in use was when I was sharing a kitchen. Someone kept taking it out of the kettle - when I figured out who it was and explained that it was magic rather than a little scouring pad, I got the distinct impression that he didn't believe me.

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

Rob Morley typed

That was not true in my case.

I had to descale my concealed element jug kettle every 3 months or so. Then it started leaking though the water level guage tubes, so I threw it away.

I am now using my 30-year-old Russell Hobbs; somehow, the limescale flakes off rather than building up.