How to Get Rid of Hard Water Build Up?

C.,

I know how awful the hard water stains are in tub and toilets. We move to Northern Nevada from Boston and it has been awful. The water leaves awful stains everywhere. I clean house for a living, and have found a magic cleaner for all the hard water stains, the calcium deposits, etc., from the water.

Go to a restaurant supply house or Farmer Bros. Coffee if you have one close by and ask to purchase a package of grill screens. They are brown rectangular screens about the size of your hand, used to clean fry grill surfaces. They have one side that's a big rougher than the other. Use the roughest side and scrub the ring out of your toilet and the hard water marks out of the tub. It will take hard water deposits off the fixtures as well.

They work like a miracle. They won't scratch the surface of your tub or toilet and they won't scratch your fixtures either. I get them wet and scrub away. No cleaner, just water and some elbow grease. Although if you catch the stains before they've built up for a long time, they come right off with little or no effort.

I asked our Farmer Bros. rep here in Elko who first discovered the screens would clean the hard water deposits and he said the women have been buying the screens from him for years. Don't know who figured it out, but it's the best thing I've ever used. It sounds fishy and too good to be true, but I promise you'll never go back to anything else once you get your hands on these little screens. They work faster and better than a pumice stone.

For buildup in the dishwasher, you'll have to use some kind of commercially made cleaner. I believe Cascade brand makes a dishwasher cleaner, I think someone might have mentioned it in another post. It sits upside down in the silverware basket in an empty dishwasher and works like a charm.

Let me know if you have any questions about the grill screens, you won't be disappointed!

G.

2 moms found this helpful

Try vinegar-straight don't dilute it.
It is ultimately green but takes more work than the cleaners that do the work for you. (and there's the smell)
Just pour it on and let it set a few minutes (not long enough to really dry) then wipe it off. You may want to clean it with lime away to get it really clean first and use this to keep it up since it takes several applications and some scrubbing to take water spots off.
It will prevent them in the future if you keep up with it. I keep a spray bottle in the shower and just spray it all over the tub and sink as soon as I am done using them. Works for windows, everything. Pour a bunch in your dishwasher and run a load or two with just vinegar, redo as needed.
Good Luck

2 moms found this helpful

In the dishwasher all you need to do is use "LemiShine" dish detergent a few times. It is like an army of little scrubbing men in there and it cleans the dishes too. When we moved into our house 2 years ago the dishwasher had so many hard water deposits that the water could barely get in it enough to clean the dishes, two washes with "LemiShine" and it looked almost new inside. We bought it at Wal Mart for $3 or so. Not sure if it's "green" but it worked!

2 moms found this helpful

Have you tried using vinegar? It has an acidic nature, so it can dissolve some of those hard water deposits. Try putting vinegar in the dishwasher and running it. As for the tub and shower, you can use vinegar there too, but not if it is tile. The vinegar will eat away at the grout, too, so only use it if you have an enclosure tub.

2 moms found this helpful

White vinegar.

And, bizarrely, coca cola helps with stains on porcelain.

so does alka seltzer. the plop plop fizz fizz tablets.

1 mom found this helpful

Lime-Away has always worked for me.

1 mom found this helpful

Look for Holy Cow products at BB&B or Walmart... love those products. You can also try a pumice stone.

1 mom found this helpful

Hi C., The hard water buildup is a problem, and I know alot of people just get the water softener going.
Cleaning is a hassle, isn't it?
I've lived here for over 25 years and I just use the dishwasher cleaner/softscrub for bathroom/ and softner in the laundry so I will be curious to see what other people use.
Good luck, D.
PS. If you need some help in the financial planning area, life insurance etc, let me know. I know more about that than hard water. take care and feel good!!

1 mom found this helpful

Hi C.,

A great thing for the dishwasher is a single packet of lemonade Kool-aid. Seriously...no detergent. Just one packet will clear up the hard water on dishes and dishwasher. Target carries a product in the dishsoap area called Lemon Shine, the hard water expert. I use it with every cycle.
CLR is suppose to be really good with hard water in bathrooms.
Ultimately, a home hardwater filtration system would be best. We'd like to have one of those, but who can afford that!

Hope this helps!!

E.

1 mom found this helpful

I have the same challenge with hard water here in Palm Springs. I have been using a couple of tablespoons of Oxyclean powder along with my usual dishwasher soap. Seems to be working. Makes it smell better in there, also.

I made the mistake of using tap water in my fish tanks, letting it sit out overnight to let the chlorine dissipate, of course. Unfortunately, it caused all kinds of those white, hard water, calcified, crunchy gunky build up. So, I undid everything, which was a real pain in the neck, and let each side of my fish tanks soak in pure cider vinegar overnight. The gunk sort of became softer and was easy to wash out. Now, I used a Britta water purifier tank (usually kept in my fridge -- the kind with the spout on it) to run a pitcher of water to add to my fish tanks (let it become room temp). No more gunk using that kind of water in the fish tanks.

C.

Try Lime Away for your shower. As for the dishwasher I have the same hard water problem. I found a dishwasher cleaner at walmart. You put it in the silverware basket and run it on the hottest cycle. It works great. Unfortunatly Walmart is the only place I've found it. I also read that you can use Koolaid Lemonaid. Just pour the powder in where the detergent goes (small packet, not the one with sugar already in it) but I haven't tried it.

Have you consider a soft water conditioner?
Or,here's another option: http://allpurewater.com/pages/waterguard.html

Good luck!