As I’m working from home today, the state of the home kettle (Dualit, natch) is concerning me.

I spent a very satisfying 40 minutes yesterday trying to descale it, first with vinegar, then with not one, but _TWO_ sachets of Oust. The vinegar did nothing, but the Oust was more up to the challenge and got rid of some of the scale. It’s still quite heavily scaled though and it’s annoying me.

Short of going out to buy another couple of sachets of Oust, or hiring a team of very, very small mining engineers to get rid of it, what other ways are there to get rid of the stuff?

Get on ebay and order a big tub of citric acid. Chuck about a tablespoon in then boil the kettle and it should be fine. Used it for our baby bottle steamers and it works a treat.

This stuff

I use lemon juice. Much more pleasant after-taste than vinegar.

Buy a bottle of Kilrock descaler from Robert Dyas, it seems to be the only stuff that touches the scale that builds up on our kettle.

You did boil it with vinegar in? Vinegar should work fine, it’s essentially Acetic acid.

I buy a new kettle every year.

Citric acid

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I buy a new kettle every year.

I use a Brita filter: long lasting kettles, nice tasting tea

Just pour a 2 litre bottle of diet coke in before bedtime and leave overnight.

I’m too posh to have scale build up…. Which is nice….

The diet coke trick could be the next one to try. I’ll look for the stuff next time I’m in Waitrose.

why diet coke, not regular?

I dump the used DeLonghi coffee machine descaler into our kettle when and it does a fantastic job. 2 years worth of limescale removed in minutes.

why diet coke, not regular?

Stops your kettle getting fat.

I cut 2 or 3 lemons up and boil the kettle with them in the water, do that a few times and all the scale has gone.

30% Nitric Acid, it’s like the Cilit Bang adds but faster!

We live in a very hard water area and it takes several sachets of descaler to have any effect.

You’re down the road from me aren’t you footflaps? Cambridge way?

Really hard water. Tastes horrible.

Should add, it doesn’t need to be branded cola (ie Coke), cheap Aldi stuff for 39p does the trick.
The reason for using diet is that there is no sugar in it to make everything sticky and messy. Just the phosphoric acid you want to clean the scale off.Stink less than vinegar too.