If you live in a hard water area, with a high amount of calcium, you’ll often find your appliances covered in limescale. It can cause a lot of damage to your appliances and just as importantly it can spoil the taste when you’re trying to enjoy your cup of tea.
What is limescale?
Limescale is a residue made up of calcium and carbonate ions left behind when hard water evaporates. It’s the chalky deposit that you’ll often find in your kettle or around your taps, or usually around any product that uses hot water. Once you have a layer of limescale, it will keep building every time you run your tap.
Is limescale damaging?
In small quantities, limescale will not be damaging to your health, but it’s not pleasant to drink when it flakes off into your tea. However, if left untreated, limescale can build-up on your appliances and leave you with irreparable damages, it can often restrict the flow of water or cause blockages.
It can also shorten the lifespan of your humidifier if not looked after regularly.
Map of hard water areas in the UK:
Source: Bristan
You have a build up of a white, chalky substance on the edge of the head of the tap (pictured), or flakes of white chalky substance in your kettle or when you make yourself a cup of tea.
Photo: Bathroom tap with build up of limescale
On a humidifier, you’ll see the same white chalky substance wrapped in the humidifier’s water tank (pictured)
How do you get rid of limescale on your humidifier or other appliances?
Please see our Youtube video below where our Managing Director Chris Michael shows how to look after your humidifier to make sure it keeps running efficiently for a long time.
Below are the top tips from the video to remove limescale from your humidifier. Do this regularly and you will get many years of happy service from your humidifier.
- Switch off and unplug your unit → do not attempt to clean your humidifier while it’s still running.
- The ultrasonic pad and PTC heater can be located in the base of the humidifier. The ultrasonic pad vibrates at high speed in order to turn water into mist. The PTC heater heats up the water when the warm mist option is chosen.
- In areas where the water quality is hard, limescale will form on the ultrasonic pad and PTC heater surface. The ultrasonic pad and PTC heater will need to be cleaned with a cleaning agent.
- Add a small amount of cleaning agent (click here for a descaler) onto the ultrasonic pad and PTC heater, leave to soak in the sink for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Clean the ultrasonic pad and PTC heater with the small brush provided in the lid of the water tank until the limescale has disappeared.
- Rinse the ultrasonic pad and PTC heater in water to remove any residue.
- Do not clean the ultrasonic pad or PTC heater with metal or any material that could scrape and cause damage.
- The ultrasonic pad and PTC heater must be cleaned weekly.
If you have any further questions about your humidifier, our customer service team is happy to help by phone 01483 234900, or email us at customerservice@meaco.com.
