Tips & Tricks To Prevent Hard Water Stains From Building Up In The Toilet

Hard water can sometimes seem like an inescapable fact of life: the sky is blue, water is wet, and your dishes are always covered in white streaks after you wash them. If you're tired of dealing with all the many horrors that hard water can cause in your home, know that prevention is possible — and it's worth the investment. Options exist for a range of budgets, including consistent cleaning, water softeners, and scale removers.

If your water is hard, you're in good company. A whopping 85 percent of people in the US have hard water, or water that contains more than 7.5 grains per gallon of hard minerals such as calcium and magnesium. These minerals lead to buildup over time, known as scale, which shows up in a multitude of places, from white spots on the dishes to crunchy-feeling hair.

The toilet is no exception. Depending on the specific minerals in the water, the bowl can develop unsightly orange or brown stains. As scale accumulates on various components, the toilet may also start to have trouble flushing, take a long time to refill, or run constantly. Luckily, before hard water causes your toilet problems, you can get ahead of any issues with the right products.

One easy way to prevent hard water stains is to stay on top of cleaning. Scrubbing your toilet bowl once a week helps prevent mineral deposits from accumulating into thicker buildup that's more difficult to remove. However, one additional step makes a big difference: once a month, apply an acidic product such as vinegar, lemon juice, or citric acid to the toilet. One natural, safe method is to pour 1 cup of white vinegar into the tank, let it sit for at least 30 minutes, and then flush.

You can also use a commercial toilet descaler for this step. For example, this Vacplus Automatic Descaler from Amazon contains citric acid. Place it in the toilet tank once a month, leaving it overnight to descale thoroughly. Some people also have good luck with magnetic and electronic descalers; although their effectiveness is more complex to measure, they can stay in the toilet indefinitely.

Lastly, you can opt to install a water softener that reduces minerals in the water for your entire home. Before you go this route, it's helpful to test for hard water so you can determine which minerals are most prevalent and which water softener will work best. This is a costlier investment upfront, but it allows you to enjoy soft water for years to come and skip adding products to the toilet every month.