How to de-scale a loo that is connected to a Septic tank?

[michael adams]

He should have stuck with the septic tanks and not allowed himself to get sidetracked into a discussion of toilet bowls and acid which are clearly his weaker points.

michael adams

...

[tabbypurr]

That's so dumb it warrants a repost just for the sake of it.

[tabbypurr]

yep.

NT

[michael adams]

Not just for me.

Why did you snip the second paragraph I wonder ?

I thought your solution to this problem, something which will dissolve limescale overnight with no need for scraping covered all typical situations. Not only your own where apparently you only get limescale under the waterline.

If only you'd stuck to the septic tank end of this discussion you might have stood a better chance but you allowed me to side track you into a discussion of acids and toilet bowls which are clearly your weak points.

So much so that you're now feigning amnesia and a highly untypical pattern of limescale deposits around your bowl

michael adams

...

[michael adams]

I know that you're still bitter about my showing that you totally contradicted yourself in the pump action screwdriver thread*, but you really shouldn't allow that bitterness to affect your judgement.

Had you actually taken the trouble to read the thread before jumping out of your zimmer frame, you'd realise that the OP has insisted right from the outset that the limescale will be totally dissolved without any need for manual intervention. No scraping, no brushing, nothing. It will simply flush away . That can't be achieved with a liquid such as the OP is proposing using unless all the limescale is immersed.

Anyone else could use a gel which stuck to the back of the bowl but the OP is denied that possibility by his previous insistence on using his chemical of choice.

michael adams

*

So which did you use ?

The mains drill which left the Yankee "for dead" or the manual screwdriver because the bit was "falling off repeatedly?

...

[tabbypurr]

Boy are you clueless. It's Rod mark II

NT

[Fredxxx]

eBay and the like certainly, but I haven't seen it supermarkets like you used to.

Where did you have in mind?

[tabbypurr]

ebay, amazon etc.

NT

[michael adams]

Where did I say that ?

There's plenty of information about septic tanks on the net.

All of which contradict your advice.

A contributor to this very thread suggested that the OP should neutralise the acid by adding sodium carbonate or bicarbonate before flushing it away. Something you clearly consider totally uneccsssary.

Whereas your "advice" is based on the following statement

"Anyhoo given that a decent septic tank worth having probably has a capacity of 2-2.5k litres+, all this fretting over a couple of occasional litres of dilute acid or bleach seems a trifle ott."

Now I know you're categorically refusing to identify the acid you were referring to.

But just out of interest can you fill in the missing word

- the one with the ****,s in the following sentence ?

Just because a decent septic tank worth having probably has a capacity of 2-2.5k litres+, that doesn't necessarily mean that it actually c******s 2.5k litres or anything like it, at any one time.

So that basically the OPs septic tank could be almost empty, for all you know. and yet despite this you're advising him to flush five bog loads of non neutralised dilute acid into it.

It's at this point I suppose that you're also going to claims you've got no limescale around the inside of your rim, so that theres nothing there for this acid of yourse to dissolve overnight, either.

michael adams

...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yep.

And brick acid And caustic soda crystals ( )

In short everything you need for bog and drain cleaning exists

And if you want sodium Chlorate weedkiller, just boil up this lot

and it will turn into sodium chlorate solution and salt. Do this outside though.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You were of course completely wrong. As usual

This is correct, though mechanical disturbance of the broken up surface speeds the process

Oh dear. That's precisely what the gel formulations of surfactants and acids are there to do. They cling to the bowl.

Of course blowing up a balloon inside the U-bend will allow you to fill up the rim fairly easily...as will putting acid in the cistern: after all if the scale arrived in the cistern water, so too will its demise..

HOWEVER the original question was about limescale below the surface of the normal water level.

Just use a plunger to empty the bog, then fill it up with brick acid, and leave it for an hour or two agitating occasionally to ensure dispersal of the calcium chloride.

Then flush, hold the ballcock up, and tip the rest of the acid stuff into the cistern.

That will give a power flush next time you do it.

For normal maintenance simply spraying limescale remover under the rim every week or so will keep it all in check

[The Natural Philosopher]

well any of sulphuric (battery acid) hydrochloric (brick acid) phosphoric (coca cola) acetic (vinegar) formic (often used in de scalers) sulphamic, muriatic etc will do.

In fact I cant think of an acid that wont. LSD perhaps wont. It will just make the lime scale more interesting.

This is of course correct as anyone who has tipped brick acid on limestone will tell you.

2HCl + CaCO3-> H2O + CaCl2 + CO2.

CaCl2, calcium chloride, is soluble in water and the reaction produces water.

So that diffuses away.

The problem is rate of diffusion: at the acid-limescale interface the acid concentration falls especially with low acid concentrations where the fizz factor doesn't stir things up too good

Ah, the mandatory ad hominem.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. it isn't.

99% of all staining is where water collects and deposits calcium carbonate. That is under the usual water level.

Not half as fast as the water collected in the bowl does.

It does. The problem with the bowl cleaning (and under rim cleaning) is getting the acid to stick. That's where gel preparations do better than Hcl.

Not only your own where

[The Natural Philosopher]

You should have stuck with the septic tanks and not allowed yourself to get sidetracked into a discussion of toilet bowls and acid which are clearly your weaker points.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have. Tucked away in IIRC waitrose

[The Natural Philosopher]

my god, your supreme ignorance is on display once more

If, by septic tank, you simply mean a bloody great tank full of shit that does no treatment whatsoever, then of course you are right, because it has no outflow and must be emptied - generally every monthh or two - by a truck and a pump. Of course since there are no bugs to kill you can sling what you like in it.

OTOH if you are talking about a private sewage treatment plant with settlement tanks that use the actual bacteria to digest the shit into acceptable fertiliser and purify the water that is then discharged on a continuous basis, then of course they are ALWAYS FULL of water.

I can see now why you didn't stick with the septic tanks and sidetracked the thread into discussion of toilet bowls and acids. Sadly you turned out to be just as ignorant on these matters.

[Fredxxx]

A search on their website failed to find any ammonia:

[The Natural Philosopher]

yep. It wasn't IIRC sold as ammonia but that's what it was, and I was in store, not on the web site.

Simethinbg like EzyKleen or some bollocks anyway ammonia is getting to be one of the things like caustic soda that you have to snap up from independent hardware shops or buy on line

[NY]

As far as I am aware, the first is called a cesspit and the second is called a septic tank.

My parents have a septic tank (well, the standard arrangement of two enormous round-bottomed flasks in the ground, where one drains into the other) at their holiday cottage. Admittedly it doesn't get as much use as a family house that is lived in all the time, but as far as I know it has never been emptied in the 40 years that they have owned the cottage. The treated outlet flows into the communal rainwater drain that is shared by all the houses in a terrace and eventually flows into a nearby stream. I presume all the other houses' septic tanks do the same.

Funny story: when we bought the cottage, it had been badly modernised on the cheap. It had the septic tank but we also found a huge breeze-block lined chamber, with no roof on it (just a huge hole in the ground) in the back garden. There was a T-shaped sewer pipe protruding from the side of one wall in the chamber. It had never been used. We tried to work out why and I did some measurements and concluded that the outlet into the tank was a foot or so *higher* than the downstairs loo. I wonder if the previous owners actually connected up the pipes and tried to use it, only to discover that sewage doesn't flow uphill, and then abandoned it and had the septic tank installed instead.

Why is it that owners of septic tanks are warned not to use plungers (only rodding) to clear any blockage?

[Huge]