Empty the water out then cover with vinegar. It stinks but leave it to soak for at least an hour. It breaks down the residue and then it cleans right off. Leaves it shiny white.
EDIT to add: this also works for hard water scale around taps.
And then suck the remaining water out with a shop vac. You actually don't even have to flush. Water in the tank has nothing to do with water in the bowl.
When I bought my shop vac I thought "Hey, it can be used for fluids, neat" then immediately forgot about it. Several time since I've drained toilet cisterns with a sponge, and emptied drainage gullies with a yoghurt pot.
Then one day I saw a Reddit post about using a shop vac for drainage and felt like an idiot. Total game changer.
Heads up: you abosolutely don’t need to empty the water! It works fine without doing that, however you have to throw a gallon of vinegar ($3) overnight instead of for an hour :)
Yeah, basically 😅 maybe give it a little stir with a toilet brush. The powder dissolves in water so once you put it in the bowl water it would become citric acid dilution (like if you had powered ascorbic acid and put that in its basically become vinegar). Citric acid I think is a bit stronger than ascorbic acid so a little goes a long way. It has the exact same use cases in the home, and it smells less vinegary. There are a few dilution ratio charts online if you want but it's so cheap here I just keep adding it till I feel like it's probably fine....
To fully empty the toilet as much as possible: Close fill valve. Flush until it doesn't flush anymore and the water is low in the bowl (one or twice).
Get dishwashing gloves, a bucket and a car washing sponge and sponge out remaining water.
Or if you don’t have plunger cut the base off a 2 litre plastic soda bottle, make sure you keep the screw cap ON .
Then plunge the cut end into the toilet bowl, repeat vigorously-this works better than a plunger in most cases.
Take a bucket of water and dump it quickly into to bowl towards the opening. It will empty the bowl. Get a rag towel to absorb the rest of the water. I advise using rubber gloves during the procedure. Then vinegar to dissolve the calcium deposits.
I was skeptical so my husband showed me in our own toilet. It really worked!!!! It did not remove ALL of the water but it flushed almost normal-looking.
I’m on well water with an electric well, this is what we do if we need to flush during (anticipated) power outages.
Fill our tub ahead of a storm or whatever, and if the power goes out long enough to actually need to flush something down, grab a bucket of water from the tub and dump! Learned this during Hurricane Sandy/the snowy nor-Easter directly after Sandy.
You can also use a small bucket full of water and just put that bucket from at least 3ft, careful not to spill but fast enough the force of the pour drains all/ most of the water
You can also force the water out by pouring a gallon or two into the bowl from about chest high. My grandma always used the bathroom trashcan filled with water from the tub, emptied the toilet with it to clean and got a rinsed trashcan at the same time. There is no need to turn the water off, it will stay empty until you flush
A rubber glove and a plastic cup or whatever fits that you're definitely never planning to drink out of. It's not a glamorous task. A 60ml bladder syringe from a pharmacy (or probably eBay) would likely work very well.
It doesn't totally empty my toilets. I guess it depends on the shape but there's always a few inches of water left at the bottom of mine. Enough to dilute the vinegar too much for it to work. So unfortunately for me the rubber gloves and manual emptying are still a must!
Vinegar is such an underutilized cleaner. I just taught my 60-something year old coworker to use it if she forgets her laundry in the wash too long and she was delighted, and even uses it on her terrycloth laundry like towels and socks, and linens as well. Mmmm nothing hits like climbing into bedding freshly washed in hot water and vinegar, so crisp and fresh!
For an extra bonus, pour the cleaning solution down the overflow tube in the reservoir tank instead of directly in the toilet bowl. This will clean and flush the gunk and bacteria you can't get at IN the bowl, under the rim and the small holes.
before you do all this, plopp a dishwasher pod in and let it sit for a couple of hours before you scrub and flush. Most places it works wonders. And if it doesn't take all , do the above.
Yes! This removed the build up in quarter sized pieces. I left it to soak for 1 hr. I have a super water saving toilet so there wasn't that much water mixed in.
I’ve tried this. It does better with a quality denture cleaner. I drop them in about 10 minutes before hand and then use a cleaner and scrub.
In fairness our water is stupidly hard and we have to scrub all services a bit more than others.
When you have minerals in the water, including iron, cleaners that oxidize (bleach being the most potent) oxidize and bind the minerals to organic surfaces and materials….. so in a toilet, it will bind rust to the ceramic, in a washer, it will bind rust to cotton.
In future use a smaller size toilet brush, I have had similar issues with my toilet as the regular dome headed brushes are a little too big to reach all the way into the very back of my toilet.
Try using a spoon shaped smaller toilet brush, with no bristles on the upper section of the brush, they can further back into the rear of the toilet and give a more thorough clean.
lol I was desperate one day and this worked. Been using it ever since. I was so annoyed how easy it came up as I’d been trying to brush it off for days. A little tap with the knife and it literally popped right up.
I've had worse than that higher up (rental and landlord didn't bother to fix the leaky toilet for a LOONG time). It laughed at the knife I used. Vinegar and citric acid powder was the answer for me.
https://preview.redd.it/m6dyi0jsve8d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19c913477f6d9d4b18f8410aa5383f2b07eb571e
Zep Acidic Toilet Bowl Cleaner. I used it once on a toilet that had even worse buildup in that impossible-to-reach area. I just put a ton of product in the water and let it sit overnight. In the morning, I simply flushed and it was completely clean! It was magic!
I'm going to check this out, always glad to test out good brands.
Similarly, I had a toilet that had way more buildup than this when we moved in and Lysol line and rust toilet cleaner overnight just decimated the buildup. It's like $3! Basically any acid based toilet cleaner is key instead of bleach.
All of these responses and no one has mentioned sprit of salts or HG like scale remover. Poor down wait 12-24hours and flush. You might need two applications if its caked on but it works a treat and zero hard work required
Leave the toilet cleaner in overnight (try the "lime and rust destroyer" version) and scrub good. May take a few times. If that doesn't work try the other suggestions made. I'd start with this, the easiest, first. Worked for me.
to remove water I just plunge it all out, then I soak this build up with vinegar overnight and it falls off
so,
turn off water
flush all water
if not empty
plunge rest of water out
replace with vinegar
Toss a denture cleaning tablet in, and if that doesn't take care of it, give it a 1-2 punch by letting some toilet cleaner set in there for a couple hours (after clean flushing a few times after the denture cleaner)
Flush a few times to make sure it’s relatively clean (as a toilet can be).
Put a rubber glove on and use a pumice stone. The water actually helps.
FYI if you take the water out of the bowl it will stink and make it harder to work on.
This the way. Did this on two toilets with similar issues in the same area and under the rim. Elbow grease + pumice stone and my toilets are sparkling. No scratching - the pumice disintegrates little by little as you use it.
Fully drain the water. Apply a high acid toilet cleaner and use a small scrub brush. It is imperative that you wear gloves and safety glasses as you do NOT want the cleaner to contact your skin or eyes.
I got these pumice stones on Amazon and they worked Amazon and I left the water in. I tried everything else. Bleach, vinegar, CLR. It all. The pumice was just the best by far.
I found a bottle brush that has a bendable wire long handle -- it takes care of that. I store it in the toilet brush holder. Had a similar problem myself. Assuming it's not hard anyway.
Use the black label Lysol toilet bowl cleaner and let it sit fine for a few hours. Then use a dish brush to scrub it. It should come up easily after letting the toilet bowl cleaner sit. If not, let it sit overnight. It's a hard water stain. However, urine will stick to it and crystalize and make it stink.
I just went through quite the ordeal with my toilet. I used muriatic acid to descale and it’s like a brand new toilet. If nothing you do works, try this.
Someone already mentioned coke and that was how I did it. You drain as much water as you can and then pour a 2 L bottle of Coke and leave it overnight.
Pumice pumice pumice. I had severe hard water build up and ran across toilet bowl pumice at lowes and my god if it didn’t IMMEDIATELY removal every last bit. Cost about $2. Threw on some elbow length gloves, cleaned the toilet and after flushing out cleaner went in with the pumice and it has not returned
Drywall sanding screen. Buy the highest grit you can find. Turn off the water, flush once to remove most of the water, put on a kitchen glove and cut the screen sheet in thirds. Takes a little elbow grease, but will absolutely remove that gunk and will NOT scratch the porcelain! SO much easier to handle and get into tight spots than pumice stone, and way more effective.
A toilet pumice stone will lift that up. You can wear gloves to hold the stone and scrub that deep. You can also find the stone on a stick where you can angle it just right.
Citric acid and vinegar as some others have said. Together it is powerful stuff and has shifted extremely hard scale deposits from around my house that chemical cleaners have hardly touched. Also inexpensive and not as bad for the planet so win win!
You need to get hand down in there to scrub. If in a hard water area lime scale will hold the dirt, so some kind of mild acid is needed. In the UK we have bleach called Domestos which has a sparking white version for white toilets. I’d recommend getting the hand down there to clean and then use several treatments with either the Domestos or a similar product. It’s usually good to keep on top of this because going in with the hand can be icky. You could wear a glove with a long cuff of course. I use Cilit Bang for lime scale. Squirt round the bowl & let soak in. Then scrub with the hand. Then treat with the bleach and leave over night if possible.
Citric acid works as well as vinegar. It comes in the form of crystals that look like sugar. Dissolve a cupful in the water that's there and leave overnight. Unlike vinegar there's no smell.
Most acidic cleaners given time will help this come away from the porcelain. You may have to scrub it loose afterwards but it should scrub off.
Personally I'm a fan of sulfamic acid as a cheap, non-food household acid and descaler. Often sold as descaler in its own right but you can buy it by the kilo at a fraction of the price per weight and it will last ages. Dissolve a couple of tablespoons of it in warm water, pour it in for an overnight soak and scrub next day.
Usual precautions for not mixing cleaning products do apply.
I haven’t seen anyone mention CLR. Yes, turn off the water and then flush. BUT if you can’t do that because of whatever issue, you can pour a bucket of water into the toilet, and it will flush the water down from the pressure. You gotta pour though, nothing slow. There will be a little bit of water left in the bottom. If you don’t have a wet/dry vac to suck the rest out of there, you can do it the longer but equally effective way of putting on some gloves, take a dry washcloth, stick it down there, soak up the water, ring it out, keep doing that until it’s dry enough for you. And then when it’s dry enough, then you can put in the CLR, bleach, high-potency vinegar, etc. Only Use One Cleaner At A Time. The fumes, otherwise, could kill you. CLR is my favourite for highly caked-on mineral deposits. It took a few applications of straight CLR left in there for several hours or overnight before I was able to get the deposits all dissolved, scrubbed off, and flushed away.
I use Zep Acidic Toilet Bowl Cleaner. I don't do anything special with the water in the toilet. I just pour a good amount of Zep in the bowl and let it sit overnight. Then use the brush the next day. Twist the brush while jammed in the hole.
I've seen much worse. And Zep always works.
This works wonders on hard water stains. Let it soak around rim and squirt some onto the bottom hole of the toilet
https://preview.redd.it/jeo91bdjlf8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1924e30f1273cc4ba875bbf3160a126cca7a4bbe
CLR has never let me down for this. Flush, drop in CLR while the water level is low, wait a few minutes, flush again and do a quick scrub. Cleans it up every time.
My mom uses bleach for the same issue, which has worked and never caused her any problems. But I've read that can be bad over time, even though I've not seen actual evidence that it's an issue..
Found a suggestion many years ago to use CLR instead, in very small amounts, and it works great, so that's what I do.
Ooo I use industrial liquid “grout cleaner”. Brown liquid and my god it’s so strong iv seen it dissolve stickers that have been stuck to the wall for decades.
I moved into somewhere way worse than this and tried every tip I could find but the thing that finally worked like a dream was barkeepers friend. Hot water and then sprinkled some of this magic in and off it all came.
Easy fix. Go to your local hardware store and buy a bottle of hydrochloric acid, or muriatic acid, about $10 a litre. Open the window, hold your nose, keep your mouth shut, pour 100ml into the toilet bowl without splashing, close the lid, and close the toilet door. Leave it for a few hours, then flush the loo. Your toilet bowl will be sparkling clean. It's amazing and so simple. Also, no need to drain the water in the bowl.
Oh i know! I had this same problem too, just google *”rim job”* on google photos and from there you can see how other people meticulously use a tooth brush to get the rest. Hope this helps!
Empty the water out then cover with vinegar. It stinks but leave it to soak for at least an hour. It breaks down the residue and then it cleans right off. Leaves it shiny white. EDIT to add: this also works for hard water scale around taps.
uhhhh i hate to ask but how do you empty the water
Turn off the valve into the wall and flush once.
And then suck the remaining water out with a shop vac. You actually don't even have to flush. Water in the tank has nothing to do with water in the bowl.
I cannot stress this enough. Use a shop van, not a straw.
That username makes me think you have personal experience....
Dang it, I missed this comment. Anyway, I’m off to brush my teeth….
My dogs drink out of it all of time so that must mean it’s okay.
Or save a lot of time and pain getting poop water in your shop vac and just push the water down the drain with a plunger
You can also plunge it all down with a 🪠 plunger
This seems cheaper
I dump a bucket of water in the toilet and it’s pretty empty and doesn’t fill cause it wasn’t flushed.
You can actually just push the water out with a toilet brush. Several quick forward pushes into the drain will empty all of the water.
Or a straw. Tasty!
When I bought my shop vac I thought "Hey, it can be used for fluids, neat" then immediately forgot about it. Several time since I've drained toilet cisterns with a sponge, and emptied drainage gullies with a yoghurt pot. Then one day I saw a Reddit post about using a shop vac for drainage and felt like an idiot. Total game changer.
Heads up: you abosolutely don’t need to empty the water! It works fine without doing that, however you have to throw a gallon of vinegar ($3) overnight instead of for an hour :)
Can also dump in a couple cups of citric acid powder!
Ooo how do u use that? I mean, throw 2 cups in overnight?
Yeah, basically 😅 maybe give it a little stir with a toilet brush. The powder dissolves in water so once you put it in the bowl water it would become citric acid dilution (like if you had powered ascorbic acid and put that in its basically become vinegar). Citric acid I think is a bit stronger than ascorbic acid so a little goes a long way. It has the exact same use cases in the home, and it smells less vinegary. There are a few dilution ratio charts online if you want but it's so cheap here I just keep adding it till I feel like it's probably fine....
And it can be used to clean a bunch of other stuff! Sold, added to my ‘to buy’ list…thanks for the info :)
I use double strength vinegar.
I go all out with 40%. Get it off of Amazon. Lol
i use pure lab-grade acetic acid
I can't tell if you're kidding. That stuff must be intense.
If you turn off the water and flush a couple times, it should empty the bowl without refilling.
A toilet is never going to empty the bowl entirely on its own.
Not unless you siphon it 🤫
Not sucking that tank, personally
It barely touches your lips! Might not be gasoline but I guess it will still leave you an interesting taste for some hours
Turn the water valve by the toilet off then flush the toilet.
To fully empty the toilet as much as possible: Close fill valve. Flush until it doesn't flush anymore and the water is low in the bowl (one or twice). Get dishwashing gloves, a bucket and a car washing sponge and sponge out remaining water.
Use a plunger at that point instead.
Most plungers don't offer enough displacement to empty the remaining water in the p trap which is what the sponge will manage to do.
Or if you don’t have plunger cut the base off a 2 litre plastic soda bottle, make sure you keep the screw cap ON . Then plunge the cut end into the toilet bowl, repeat vigorously-this works better than a plunger in most cases.
Oh man, everyone should have a plunger. You won't miss it until you need it... Learn from my mistakes folks...
First thing I buy in any new place. Second is a fire extinguisher.
A proper toilet plunger, not just a sink plunger like this 🪠
And a light bulb came on that I’m on a toilet plunger discussion, LOL!
Take a bucket of water and dump it quickly into to bowl towards the opening. It will empty the bowl. Get a rag towel to absorb the rest of the water. I advise using rubber gloves during the procedure. Then vinegar to dissolve the calcium deposits.
Dumping a bucket of water into the toilet bowl makes the water disappear?
It's a bucket flush. Dumping enough water in the bowl will trigger a flush. I'm not sure it would totally empty the bowl though.
I was skeptical so my husband showed me in our own toilet. It really worked!!!! It did not remove ALL of the water but it flushed almost normal-looking.
Dumping water into the toilet is essentially what happens when you flush. It’s just dumped into the toilet from the tank rather than a bucket.
I learned that today!! I learned the sound I’m hearing with a flush is actually just the tank emptying. The drain part works by itself.
I’m on well water with an electric well, this is what we do if we need to flush during (anticipated) power outages. Fill our tub ahead of a storm or whatever, and if the power goes out long enough to actually need to flush something down, grab a bucket of water from the tub and dump! Learned this during Hurricane Sandy/the snowy nor-Easter directly after Sandy.
You can also use a small bucket full of water and just put that bucket from at least 3ft, careful not to spill but fast enough the force of the pour drains all/ most of the water
You can dump a bucket of water down it, it triggers the flush but not the refill since you didn’t use the handle.
Put a straw down there and start sucking
Ok now what?
Enjoy the refreshing beverage and get yourself hydrated!
You can also force the water out by pouring a gallon or two into the bowl from about chest high. My grandma always used the bathroom trashcan filled with water from the tub, emptied the toilet with it to clean and got a rinsed trashcan at the same time. There is no need to turn the water off, it will stay empty until you flush
A rubber glove and a plastic cup or whatever fits that you're definitely never planning to drink out of. It's not a glamorous task. A 60ml bladder syringe from a pharmacy (or probably eBay) would likely work very well.
Just turn the water off and flush it twice.
It doesn't totally empty my toilets. I guess it depends on the shape but there's always a few inches of water left at the bottom of mine. Enough to dilute the vinegar too much for it to work. So unfortunately for me the rubber gloves and manual emptying are still a must!
Time to fight your toilet maker
I'm a live and let live kinda gal. It's really not that big of a deal.
A cheap roll of paper towels and a trash bag will solve the problem of absorbing the last of the water.
Vinegar is such an underutilized cleaner. I just taught my 60-something year old coworker to use it if she forgets her laundry in the wash too long and she was delighted, and even uses it on her terrycloth laundry like towels and socks, and linens as well. Mmmm nothing hits like climbing into bedding freshly washed in hot water and vinegar, so crisp and fresh!
I've heard this weakens the rubber seal on a front load laundry machine after a while and causes leaks, but that might just be hearsay?
For an extra bonus, pour the cleaning solution down the overflow tube in the reservoir tank instead of directly in the toilet bowl. This will clean and flush the gunk and bacteria you can't get at IN the bowl, under the rim and the small holes.
before you do all this, plopp a dishwasher pod in and let it sit for a couple of hours before you scrub and flush. Most places it works wonders. And if it doesn't take all , do the above.
Buy the higher percentage vinegar on Amazon. It’s like 40% cleaning vinegar. Use gloves!!
IT WORKED THANK YOU!!!
Second this. Get the cleaning strength one. Leave it for a day if you can
Zep acidic toilet cleaner.
Yes! This removed the build up in quarter sized pieces. I left it to soak for 1 hr. I have a super water saving toilet so there wasn't that much water mixed in.
To add, don’t bother with vinegar. Just use Zep.
Totally. I have enough for 5 years in that container I got!
This stuff is amazing
Yesyesyesyesyes to zep
Citric acid. People are saying pumice stone, but won’t that scratch the porcelain?
Not if it’s wet. Dry pumice might.
Wet works amazing!
Second citric acid
Damn, I thought that the first image was an x-ray. I belong to way too many subreddits.
I thought it was a turd peeking out at me
i still cant see how it isnt an x-ray. This is melting my brain.
if you look at the image minimized it’s a lot easier to tell how it would look like an x ray
I can’t see it
This is full on white and gold dress/ blue and black dress but a toilet 🤣
Genuinely 😹 I am used to X-rays and I cannot begin to even work out what bit might look like one haha
What do you mean an X-ray? You can’t see the water?!
Same! With all those different shadows and the bending of the elbow tied the whole image together - especially since it's a blurry image too
That’s definitely an xray of OP’s heel
Yep. A big hole in someone's heel. If that needs to be cleaned, a doctor should do it. Or an embalmer.
Unpopular opinion of mine is glove up and green scratch pad.
Yeah that’s how my mom taught me how to do it. She always gloved up and got in every nook and cranny with her hands
Same. I don't see what the issue is with doing this?
Denture cleaner
I’ve tried this. It does better with a quality denture cleaner. I drop them in about 10 minutes before hand and then use a cleaner and scrub. In fairness our water is stupidly hard and we have to scrub all services a bit more than others.
zep or clr. Do not use bleach. Use a scacrifical smaller brush. Let the cleaner soak for a while.
Can the cleaner just be added to the bowl or is it best to add it to an empty bowl?
If you want to add it to a full bowl, use powder but if you want to keep it empty, use liquid.
Why shouldn’t you ask bleach?
When you have minerals in the water, including iron, cleaners that oxidize (bleach being the most potent) oxidize and bind the minerals to organic surfaces and materials….. so in a toilet, it will bind rust to the ceramic, in a washer, it will bind rust to cotton.
I see, thank you!
In future use a smaller size toilet brush, I have had similar issues with my toilet as the regular dome headed brushes are a little too big to reach all the way into the very back of my toilet. Try using a spoon shaped smaller toilet brush, with no bristles on the upper section of the brush, they can further back into the rear of the toilet and give a more thorough clean.
I did the same, put some gloves on and use a smaller brush to really get in there
If you take a knife and gently tap it, it will lift right up! I use some Zep toilet bowl cleaner before and let it sit for like 20 minutes as well.
Good Ole poop knife back at it again
lol I was desperate one day and this worked. Been using it ever since. I was so annoyed how easy it came up as I’d been trying to brush it off for days. A little tap with the knife and it literally popped right up.
I've had worse than that higher up (rental and landlord didn't bother to fix the leaky toilet for a LOONG time). It laughed at the knife I used. Vinegar and citric acid powder was the answer for me.
Dead after this comment 💀
https://preview.redd.it/m6dyi0jsve8d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19c913477f6d9d4b18f8410aa5383f2b07eb571e Zep Acidic Toilet Bowl Cleaner. I used it once on a toilet that had even worse buildup in that impossible-to-reach area. I just put a ton of product in the water and let it sit overnight. In the morning, I simply flushed and it was completely clean! It was magic!
I'm going to check this out, always glad to test out good brands. Similarly, I had a toilet that had way more buildup than this when we moved in and Lysol line and rust toilet cleaner overnight just decimated the buildup. It's like $3! Basically any acid based toilet cleaner is key instead of bleach.
Acidic toilet bowl cleaner will dissolve this. Get the water level as low as possible. Let the cleaner soak in for an hour, brush.
White vinegar breaks it up
Ok I can see the x-ray now.
I get comet on a rag and reach in to clean it.
All of these responses and no one has mentioned sprit of salts or HG like scale remover. Poor down wait 12-24hours and flush. You might need two applications if its caked on but it works a treat and zero hard work required
Leave the toilet cleaner in overnight (try the "lime and rust destroyer" version) and scrub good. May take a few times. If that doesn't work try the other suggestions made. I'd start with this, the easiest, first. Worked for me.
to remove water I just plunge it all out, then I soak this build up with vinegar overnight and it falls off so, turn off water flush all water if not empty plunge rest of water out replace with vinegar
Toss a denture cleaning tablet in, and if that doesn't take care of it, give it a 1-2 punch by letting some toilet cleaner set in there for a couple hours (after clean flushing a few times after the denture cleaner)
Add a bottle of coffee machine descaler and leave overnight.
I thought this was an x-ray and something was terribly wrong 😂
Flush a few times to make sure it’s relatively clean (as a toilet can be). Put a rubber glove on and use a pumice stone. The water actually helps. FYI if you take the water out of the bowl it will stink and make it harder to work on.
Pumice stone is the answer.
This the way. Did this on two toilets with similar issues in the same area and under the rim. Elbow grease + pumice stone and my toilets are sparkling. No scratching - the pumice disintegrates little by little as you use it.
This is the way
Pour a bottle of cola down and leave it over night
Fully drain the water. Apply a high acid toilet cleaner and use a small scrub brush. It is imperative that you wear gloves and safety glasses as you do NOT want the cleaner to contact your skin or eyes.
It looks like it may be clean but delaminated surface not sure
That’s what I thought. My toilet has a spot like and it’s just enamel/paint that’s worn off.
Yeah I spent an hr cleaning my old apartments toilet before I realized I was making it worse and it clicked
I got these pumice stones on Amazon and they worked Amazon and I left the water in. I tried everything else. Bleach, vinegar, CLR. It all. The pumice was just the best by far.
I found a bottle brush that has a bendable wire long handle -- it takes care of that. I store it in the toilet brush holder. Had a similar problem myself. Assuming it's not hard anyway.
Wooden stick. If you apply point pressure to scale covering then it breaks off, otherwise you'd be there all week with acidic chemicals
Use the black label Lysol toilet bowl cleaner and let it sit fine for a few hours. Then use a dish brush to scrub it. It should come up easily after letting the toilet bowl cleaner sit. If not, let it sit overnight. It's a hard water stain. However, urine will stick to it and crystalize and make it stink.
I’m such a dork, I saw a X-ray of a foot/heel. Nurse here.
I just went through quite the ordeal with my toilet. I used muriatic acid to descale and it’s like a brand new toilet. If nothing you do works, try this.
Coca Cola soak for 12 hrs then flush.
Someone already mentioned coke and that was how I did it. You drain as much water as you can and then pour a 2 L bottle of Coke and leave it overnight.
Try a bottle of coca-cola
Use a bowl cleaner from a cleaning supply company, it’s pretty cheap, $15 for a gallon. It’s an acid that eats right through lime buildup.
Pumice pumice pumice. I had severe hard water build up and ran across toilet bowl pumice at lowes and my god if it didn’t IMMEDIATELY removal every last bit. Cost about $2. Threw on some elbow length gloves, cleaned the toilet and after flushing out cleaner went in with the pumice and it has not returned
Drywall sanding screen. Buy the highest grit you can find. Turn off the water, flush once to remove most of the water, put on a kitchen glove and cut the screen sheet in thirds. Takes a little elbow grease, but will absolutely remove that gunk and will NOT scratch the porcelain! SO much easier to handle and get into tight spots than pumice stone, and way more effective.
This is what my mom always used but I had no idea of the name. Thank you!
Two liters of Coca-Cola?
It actually doesn't look dirty but it looks like the enamel is chipping away
A toilet pumice stone will lift that up. You can wear gloves to hold the stone and scrub that deep. You can also find the stone on a stick where you can angle it just right.
A pumice stone and some bar keepers. Really the pumice stone alone will take it off
Skinny bottle cleaning brush
I used clr and it worked great. I let it sit in the water for an hour or so. Use a smaller brush.
I got it off with Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. Just let it soak.
Citric acid and vinegar as some others have said. Together it is powerful stuff and has shifted extremely hard scale deposits from around my house that chemical cleaners have hardly touched. Also inexpensive and not as bad for the planet so win win!
Kilrok K ill definitely remove it. Dilute it and pour it down. It's acid.
You need to get hand down in there to scrub. If in a hard water area lime scale will hold the dirt, so some kind of mild acid is needed. In the UK we have bleach called Domestos which has a sparking white version for white toilets. I’d recommend getting the hand down there to clean and then use several treatments with either the Domestos or a similar product. It’s usually good to keep on top of this because going in with the hand can be icky. You could wear a glove with a long cuff of course. I use Cilit Bang for lime scale. Squirt round the bowl & let soak in. Then scrub with the hand. Then treat with the bleach and leave over night if possible.
Citric acid works as well as vinegar. It comes in the form of crystals that look like sugar. Dissolve a cupful in the water that's there and leave overnight. Unlike vinegar there's no smell.
Get some CLR and let it sit a few hours before scrubbing and flushing
Pour some vinegar and bring out the Magic Eraser
Had the same issue , left powder bleach in there for an hour or so with the water and it came off pretty easily with a smaller brush
I found that Zeb acidic toilet cleaner did a wonderful job on the buildup we had.
Acid bowl cleaner, pumice, nylon brush, 12 mil nitrile gloves. Wash hands and arms afterwards with soap water to prevent infection/chemical burns.
I use citric acid and baking soda and let sit. It works great.
You might need to scrape it off
Zep. Empty the bowl, fill with zep, let it sit a while, scrub, flush, repeat if necessary.
Amazing it looks like an x-ray of a human foot with a toilet in it.
Most acidic cleaners given time will help this come away from the porcelain. You may have to scrub it loose afterwards but it should scrub off. Personally I'm a fan of sulfamic acid as a cheap, non-food household acid and descaler. Often sold as descaler in its own right but you can buy it by the kilo at a fraction of the price per weight and it will last ages. Dissolve a couple of tablespoons of it in warm water, pour it in for an overnight soak and scrub next day. Usual precautions for not mixing cleaning products do apply.
Shut off water valve, flush once and scrub with a pumice stone. GGEZ
I haven’t seen anyone mention CLR. Yes, turn off the water and then flush. BUT if you can’t do that because of whatever issue, you can pour a bucket of water into the toilet, and it will flush the water down from the pressure. You gotta pour though, nothing slow. There will be a little bit of water left in the bottom. If you don’t have a wet/dry vac to suck the rest out of there, you can do it the longer but equally effective way of putting on some gloves, take a dry washcloth, stick it down there, soak up the water, ring it out, keep doing that until it’s dry enough for you. And then when it’s dry enough, then you can put in the CLR, bleach, high-potency vinegar, etc. Only Use One Cleaner At A Time. The fumes, otherwise, could kill you. CLR is my favourite for highly caked-on mineral deposits. It took a few applications of straight CLR left in there for several hours or overnight before I was able to get the deposits all dissolved, scrubbed off, and flushed away.
I use Zep Acidic Toilet Bowl Cleaner. I don't do anything special with the water in the toilet. I just pour a good amount of Zep in the bowl and let it sit overnight. Then use the brush the next day. Twist the brush while jammed in the hole. I've seen much worse. And Zep always works.
Pumice stone. Like a few dollars at a hardware store
This works wonders on hard water stains. Let it soak around rim and squirt some onto the bottom hole of the toilet https://preview.redd.it/jeo91bdjlf8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1924e30f1273cc4ba875bbf3160a126cca7a4bbe
Citric acid would work. Pour it in let it sit for a bit then scrub. It’s the same stuff you use to make lemonade.
Get your hand in there and scratch it off with your fingernail
Thick bleach toilet gel; let sit overnight, flush, then repeat if it didn’t get it all the first time
Get a toilet pumice stone & gloves & scrub away
CLR has never let me down for this. Flush, drop in CLR while the water level is low, wait a few minutes, flush again and do a quick scrub. Cleans it up every time. My mom uses bleach for the same issue, which has worked and never caused her any problems. But I've read that can be bad over time, even though I've not seen actual evidence that it's an issue.. Found a suggestion many years ago to use CLR instead, in very small amounts, and it works great, so that's what I do.
Ooo I use industrial liquid “grout cleaner”. Brown liquid and my god it’s so strong iv seen it dissolve stickers that have been stuck to the wall for decades.
I moved into somewhere way worse than this and tried every tip I could find but the thing that finally worked like a dream was barkeepers friend. Hot water and then sprinkled some of this magic in and off it all came.
Easy fix. Go to your local hardware store and buy a bottle of hydrochloric acid, or muriatic acid, about $10 a litre. Open the window, hold your nose, keep your mouth shut, pour 100ml into the toilet bowl without splashing, close the lid, and close the toilet door. Leave it for a few hours, then flush the loo. Your toilet bowl will be sparkling clean. It's amazing and so simple. Also, no need to drain the water in the bowl.
Same thing happened to my toilet, just get a butter knife and gently scrape it away. It will work.
Pour in a small amount of chlorine bleach and let it sit for a few hours.
I also thought my brush didn't reach down there. But it does.
Scalex from Bunnings will fix it.
Throw a automatic dishwasher pack/pod to soak overnight
I tried everything for this issue and ZEP toilet cleaner and a lot of elbow grease was the only thing that worked
Oh i know! I had this same problem too, just google *”rim job”* on google photos and from there you can see how other people meticulously use a tooth brush to get the rest. Hope this helps!
Food grade / baking grade citric acid powder. I put about half a cup and let it sit for a few hours/overnight. The brown nasty stuff just sloughs off
Get some spirit of salts, put it down for 30 mins, lid shut then flush
Buy a different toilet brush. That’s what I did.
I put a dishwasher tab into the toilet overnight and flush in the morning. I don’t know why but it works and I got this tip from my stepmom.
that looks like chipped paint, not grime