Acid is Dangerous!Those of you with hard water have no doubt encountered one of the most annoying problems ever: descaling appliances.

Sure, calcified bathtub superscum is also seriously annoying, but there are plenty of products out there that will magically descale and de-scum your bathtub with a few sprays and some waiting. It’s the appliances that are particularly annoying to clean – appliances like coffee makers and water distillers.

There are a number of different products available for removing rock-hard mineral deposits from your gizmos, but how do you know which one to use to make your life as easy as possible? You don’t! Otherwise, what the heck are you reading this for? But now you will know soon enough…

First of all, I should note that most of the acids I’m going to mention here are dangerous, and they will burn and horribly maim you if you aren’t careful. So, for the love of frickin’ Jesus, wear thick rubber gloves and safety glasses. Yes, you’ll look like a bonehead in your safety glasses, but that’s better than being blind. How do I know? Have I been blind before? No. But I have a blind friend, and he told me so.

The type of acid you should use depends on the appliance, the severity of the mineral deposits, and the materials from which the appliance is constructed.

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For example, people generally clean coffee makers by brewing a nice fresh pot of vinegar. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which is a fairly weak organic acid. Nevertheless, sometimes acetic acid is enough.

In other cases, you may want to purchase a commercial iron/coffee maker descaling product. Normally, this type of product comes in liquid or crystalline form. The key ingredient is usually sulfamic acid, an organic acid that is used for all kinds of interesting things. Sulfamic acid is an excellent descaling agent, and it is much safer for various types of metals. When strong enough, it will even remove rust (try it!).

Sulfamic acid is, in fact, my acid of choice for most applications. When it comes to sulfamic acid, the crystalline white powder kind that comes in a packet is the best. The simple reason for this is that what you are getting is basically sulfamic acid and nothing else. You dissolve the crystals in water, and voila! You have a glorious descaling solution. There are also liquid descalers that contain sulfamic acid, but alas, they also contain other cleaning agents and stabilizers in order to keep the sulfamic acid in a liquidy state. Go for the crystalline stuff!

Now, sometimes, you have an appliance like a water distiller. Water distillers are fabulous contraptions for generating super-pure drinking water. Contrary to popular belief, drinking distilled water is NOT bad for you. I should know: I’ve been drinking nothing but distilled water for two years now, and I feel great! I am in perfect health. The reasons for why distilled water is actually good for you are beyond the scope of this post, but you can find a bunch of info on the subject by doing a simple web search.

In any case, water distillers for the home usually work by heating water with an electric element inside a sealed metal container. The water boils, the steam rises into a spiraling tube, a fan cools the tube, the pure water condenses, and it trickles down into the water reservoir. As you can imagine, what is left in the boiling chamber is a whole lot of nasty, crusty, rock-hard mineral deposits jam-packed with whatever other evil crapola is in your tap water. Cleaning those deposits is not easy, since it is literally rock hard.

This is where sulfamic acid comes in. It has to be VERY highly concentrated. In other words, dump in lots of packets of the white crystals! It works great, and it’s far more friendly for the metal boiling chamber and associated components.

However, sometimes, the mineral deposits are just too hard, or you don’t have hours to wait for the descaling process. In that case, go out and get yourself some hydrochloric acid, commonly known as muriatic acid. It’s the same stuff your belly uses to help digest food.

Hydrochloric acid is seriously evil stuff (except when it’s in your belly). You’ll see this for yourself when you catch a whiff of the noxious odors coming out of your calcified appliance when you pour in the diluted acid. Hydrochloric acid will eagerly eat through things like certain rubber seals, so be careful. It also has a bad habit of eating away at certain metals, so it must be used with caution. You don’t want to just willy nilly dump it full strength into some flimsy plastic reservoir and watch as your plastic container slowly dissolves. On the plus side, this is one acid that does not mess around with even the hardest mineral deposits.

Whatever acid you use, you will probably have to drain the acid, flush with water, and possibly use a metal utensil to poke and prod at any remaining deposits. They should just fall right off your appliance at that point. Flush with more water, and then place the gizmo back in service.

Of course, you can also use a container with acid in it to clean off calcified components, pipes or fittings, etc.

Stick with sulfamic acid if you can, since it’s the most friendly – in more ways than one. But whatever acid you use, be careful!!!

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