TeamToilet bowl rust stains make your bathroom look awful, even after cleaning. The reddish-brown stains are not only one of the biggest eyesores you can experience it is also very stubborn. Standard toilet cleaning solution won’t get the job done despite the hours you spend cleaning it.
These rust stains are formed when oxygen and iron react with water. If you have a lot of iron in your water, they can dissolve and react with oxygen to form rust stains in your toilet bowl. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways you can remove rust stains in your toilet bowl. Read on to learn the tips for removing and preventing rust stains in your toilet bowl.
How to Remove Rust Stains from Your Toilet Bowl
There are a lot of chemical solutions that are produced to help combat rust stain in the toilet bowl, but in this article, we are going to discuss how you can use some household cleaning solutions to perfectly clean your toilet.
Baking Soda and White Vinegar
You can use a combination of baking soda and white vinegar to remove toilet rust stains. Sprinkle about a half cup of baking soda over the rust stain in your toilet bowl and spray it with white vinegar. Then, let it sit for about 30 minutes before scrubbing the toilet bowl with a brush. If you notice stains after scrubbing, repeat the process until the rust stains are gone.
Coca-Cola
Turn off the water supply to your toilet, and then flush the remaining water in the bowl. After that, directly pour Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and allow it to sit overnight. The soda has an acid that helps eat away at the rust stains. Turn the water supply back on and flush your toilet. And then, use your toilet brush to scrub the remaining stains.
White Vinegar and Water
Make a solution of an equal amount of water and white vinegar. Then pour the solution on a cloth and scrub the rust stains with the soaked cloth. You can also pour the solution into a sprayer bottle rather than use a cloth. If you have stubborn rust stains, you can use more vinegar than water in your cleaning solution. Let the solution soak into the stain before you rinse it.
Borax Powder and Lemon Juice
The combination of Borax powder and lemon juice generally removes rust stains. Mix a cup of lemon juice and Borax powder and wait until the solution turns to paste. Put the paste onto the rust stain and leave it for a few hours. Then remove the paste, and the rust stain should be gone.
Pumice Stones
Pumice stones are gentle and safe enough to use in your toilet bowl. Use the pumice stones to scrub the rust stains away, especially if one of the methods discussed above fails to completely do the job.
Now for what not to do to clean your toilet bowl: Avoid using bleach in your toilet bowl. It will actually make the problem worse and damage your septic system. Also, don’t scrub your toilet bowl with anything super-abrasive or metal. They will ruin the porcelain.
How to Prevent Rust Stains in Your Toilet Bowl
Now that you have successfully removed these stains from your toilet bowl, here are some of the tips for preventing them from occurring again.
- Clean regularly. When you clean your toilet at least once a week, it will prevent the accumulation of iron and other deposits from forming rust stains.
- Add a water softener or iron filter. Water purification systems and filters can eliminate the problem at the source by removing iron deposits in the water to prevent future rust stains. Some water softener salts are even specially formulated to fight rust.
- Upgrade your plumbing system. Older homes usually have iron pipes, and rust deposits will continue to form due to the pipe breakdown until you upgrade the old pipes. You can also prevent rust stains from forming on your toilet bowl in the first place by upgrading parts of these plumbing fixtures.
Conclusion
So hopefully, one of the removal methods discussed above has worked for you, and those ugly rust stains are gone from your toilet bowl. However, it is important to keep in mind that these methods are only temporary solutions. If, after removing and preventing rust stains in your toilet bowl, you still notice them quite often, there may be an underlying hard water issue. And you may need to contact your plumbing contractor.
