Say goodbye to limescale (Scale Away Descaler)

Member Name: clairestevens

Product:	Scale Away Descaler
Date:	05/03/08 (445 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gets rid of limescale

Disadvantages: White vinegar does the job just as well and is far cheaper

We live in a very hard water area, so our shower heads and kettles are constantly furring up with limescale. In case you live in a soft water area and have no idea what I'm talking about, limescale is created when your water supply contains calcium bicarbonate - a water-soluable mineral. Unfortunately, when it reaches temperatures over 70 degrees celcius, calcium bicarbonate changes to insoluable calcium carbonate which sticks to pipes and heating elements and causes a build-up of very hard, off-white limescale. Limescale reduces the efficiency of your kettle or iron and blocks the holes in your shower head, so it's neccessary to remove it every couple of months or so.

Enter Scale Away. This nifty product promises to remove limescale, leaving your appliances shiny and efficient. For about £1.20, you get a box with three sachets of clear liquid, each weighing about 25g. To descale a kettle, half-fill it, bring to the boil, switch off and pour in the sachet of Scale Away. Leave for ten minutes and bingo, your kettle is free of limescale. It really does leave it looking as good as new. To treat a shower head, unscrew it from the pipe and soak for ten minutes in a bowl of containing hot water and a sachet of Scale Away. For irons, make up a solution of Scale Away and hot water (about half and half) and pour into the water container of your iron. Leave for a few minutes and pour out.

Scale Away is incredibly easy to use and gets the job done. It works because the active ingredient (in fact, the only ingredient) is citric acid, which eats away at the alkaline limescale. Citric acid is also found in citrus fruits, but this is a much higher concentration, which means you need to be careful handling it and wash your hands thoroughly if you spill it.

I would definitely recommend Scale Away to anyone in a hard water area, based on its performance. However, I recently discovered that you can get the same results by using neat white vinegar and the result is just as good. And the real benefit is that white vinegar is about 50p a litre, so a bottle lasts for months.

Summary: Works well, but white vinegar is cheaper!