4 out of 5 leaves
Vinegar is a popular low cost all purpose cleaner. It’s better for the environment and safer for your family. But can it handle limescale deposits from hard water?
The Good
- Better for the Earth — natural vinegar vs synthetic cleaning compounds
- Better for you — natural vinegar in the house vs scary chemicals
- Very Low cost — One gallon of vinegar is only a couple dollars
The Bad
- Didn’t completely remove limescale (almost – but not completely).
My Experience
We have hard water here in Los Angeles. Look at how gross my dish rack pan gets after about a month of draining dishes.
Icky Limescale!
I decided to tackle it with old faithful – white vinegar!
I gave it a good spritz, waited a minute and wiped it down with a damp cloth. A lot of the scale came off, but as the pan dried, I could see there was still a bit more to be removed. I soaked the remaining spots with vinegar and gave it five minutes to work. After giving it a final wipe-down and rinse, I let it fully dry and assessed the results.
Just a tiny bit left
As you can see there’s just a little shadow left of the scale. For me this is good enough — especially since I know the scale will begin to build up again after the dinner dishes are done. I rate it 4 out of 5 leaves only because it was not perfect, and I don’t want to spend more than 5 minutes on this. As an added bonus, my kitchen smelled like Jones Salt and Vinegar chips for a short while. Mmmmmmm!
Have you tried using vinegar for cleaning hard water scale? How could I do it better? Please share your thoughts and ideas below!
Shared at Sunday School, Monday Mania, Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Rural Thursday, Your Green Resource, Frugal Friday
I actually have no idea if we have hard water. I live in NJ. I used to live in the LA area though, so I understand. But I love the idea of using something more natural to clean.
Natural AND so inexpensive!
I love white vinegar. I use it on our cloth diapers when we start getting build up. Wonderful stuff!
Yes, I’m quickly falling in love. Stay tuned for many more vinegar idea reviews!
I haven’t tried using vinegar yet, but I will soon. I live on the central coast of California, and we definitely have hard water, here, too. I found your blog post via the Your Green Resource link-up today 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
Thanks for your visit, Heather!
We have very hard water here in eastern Nebraska (well water) and I use vinegar to spray down the shower stall after every use. It helps to keep the scale from forming. Great post!
I hadn’t thought about a daily spray down. I’ll have to try it!
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I’ve only used white vinegar hot to remove lime stains. I boil it in my water kettle when there is too much build up. And then I let it sit for a while. Works great. I grew up with doing it that way.
I keep a 12 oz bottle of water with two tbs. of cider vinegar for minor heart burn in the refrigerator. Vinegar being acidic, you would think it would irritate the problem, but it works.
Be sure to use Cleaning Vinegar to get the best results. Cleaning Vinegar has a higher acid content, and can be found with either the cooking vinegars or cleaning supplies.