You may at this point wish to run around with your hands in the air screaming hysterical rubbish. Oh, hang on, you already have done.
Sulphamic acid is relatively insoluble hence it's impossible to do any serious harm with it, unless one intend to drink the solution created. Acetic acid is also difficult to misuse in such a way that it causes serious or lasting damage, unless one is using glacial acetic acid whioch is damned difficult to get hold of.
Are you scared by the thought of people sousing their chips with acid?
If you want something more effective than supermarket standard descaler, obtain a bucket of Fernox descaler sold for descaling central heating systems. The descaler is a bucket of sulphamic acid crystals, which you dissolve in water. The rule is to always add the crystals to water and as a matter of course to wear rubber gloves and eye protection. You will need to dissolve the crystals in warm water because they don't dissolve well in cold water. About 1 part boiling water to 2 parts cold water gives the correct temperature.
If you try to dissolve too much acid in the water it will precipitate out when the water cools. In general a ratio of a scoop of 50ml of crystals to a half litre of water seems sufficient.
You can use this solution to refill an existing commercial descaler bottle. Usual caveats, don't leave in contact with metals for long, don't use on marble, don't drink it or squirt it into eyes/orifices.
You claimed back in December that you worked exclusively with "Motorway traffic officers". You also claimed you worked at a legal practice.
Now you say you are a bio chemist after previously cclaiming you worked in "a lab".
(You also claimed you worked in Dunstan whilst claiming on another newsgroup that you work in Wakefield. In addition you also claim to work in Bristol!
Do you honestly expect anyone to trust your opinion on toilet cleaner??
Thats precisely why I use HCl. It kills scale on contact, and its cheap and available. I dont have all year to soak the entire bathroom and see if the scale has improved a bit, it takes long enough with the fast stuff.
I'm a little puzzled by some of the responses on this, emotional warnings of danger etc. All of us at school handled stronger acids than
5% (IIRC) HCl, I worked with 100% phosphoric acid (solid), 4M H2SO4, bromine, an that was at age not a lot. (The more adventurous kids were playing with gunpowder and more dangerous things.)
Dilute HCl is sold OTC to anyone and everyone, with no special warnings. Look at the toilet cleaners and you'll find a variety of acids used, including hydrochloric. Both the law and the retailers think its fine to sell that to unaccompanied youngsters and retards (IIRC 5% of the adult population).
Then theres the accidents, the horrible stories with all those hideous and tragic pictures of acid burn victims... where are they? Where are the safety nuts campaigning for the banning of HCl in toilet cleaner? The thing is just a non issue. Can you injure yourself with dilute HCl? Yes certainly, just as you can with almost everything. The real world rates of injuries make fretting over HCl illogical. Going down the stairs must be 1000 times more dangerous. Sometimes one needs a little perspective.
Finally a few points were made I'll address. First sulphamic acid wasnt designed for any job, it was discovered, and has been applied for various uses since then, descaling being its prime DIY use. Secondly if recommending using HCl with no knowledge of its potential problems is stupid, is it also stupid to recommend it knowing perfectly well what it can do? I wonder why people make illogical assumptions.
3rd someone suggested the gunk may contain other things than scale. It frequently does, and this is one of the plusses of HCl, it eats a lot more things than weak acids like citric and acetic.
In short HCl works very well, is cheap and available, has a tiny and perfectly acceptable safety issue, is an excellant and appropriate descaler for difficult to shift scale. (Odd that people recommend brick acid but get steamed over dilute HCl toilet cleaner.) If you think Im a twt for recommending it, so be it, but I dont think that a reasonable view myself.
Kindly explain why using sulphamic acid supplied in crystalline form will be less effective than using a 1% solution packaged with added fragrance?
It's also telling that you saw fit to trim the post to remove the safety and usage advice that I gave. It rather gives the impression that you have an ace to grind.
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