Plumbers-Help. P*ss & Vinegar

Recently moved into a new, er, old (1973), house and the plumbing/water quality is not the best. The water has a brownish-yellow color, probably from galvanized piping. (The water utility has taken samples and is testing for chemical content-no results yet). (I use on-tap filter for ingested water.)

So, every few days there are dark brown stains under each faucet and down the sides of the toilet bowl, between the rim and the water surface. I’ve read about and succeeded in cleaning the bowl sides below the water surface by leaving a quart of vinegar in the commode overnight. It dissolves the rust there but there is no thick accumulation there due to flushing action.

My question, can I put vinegar into the toilet tank to let it work on the thicker coating of brown deposited on the tank walls without damaging anything?

I know you cannot use chlorine-based in-tank water cleaners without them corroding the rubber gaskets.

Any “solutions”, short of elbow grease and Brillo, to this age-old but new to me problem?

The brown stains are rust resulting from the galvanized pipe being old and corroded internally.
The grocery store should have lime-away, and similar products containg a weak solution of HCl which will remove the stains.
You may have to repipe the house. If so the new high pressure plastic piping will prevent future problems of this type.

Your local hardware should have a pumice block designed just for cleanibg porcelain fixtures, they’re very cheap and work much better than other cleaners/abrasives which can damage the finish.
I can see a rust buildup if the house was unused for a period, but it should flush out pretty quickly. Are you on well water? Could it be an old water heater? I’m fairly certain that copper pipe was the preferred material in the 70’s.

I agree with A.R. Cane, in the seventies copper was the material of choice. I reject the hot water heater thing as you mentioned the toilet, and I have never seen an installation where the bowl is fed by water going through the heater, it is attached to the incoming feed (with a valve or two in between). So the problem is one of a couple of things.

  1. Worst case scenario, galvanized piping in the home, get ready for a whopping bill to re-pipe, and get a big bottle of prozac, you will need it.

  2. Galvanized piping leading in to the house, bad but easier to dig up a lawn that tear up walls.

  3. The water itself has a very high mineral content, in which case a water softener/filter arrangement might be in order.

Please note I am not a plumber, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

As has been stated the brown stains are rust.
They most likely come from corroded pipes, but they can also come from a high iron content in the water supply. Well water is often very high in iron.
You can buy iron filters if the iron is in the water supply.
About repipes. Check you local codes plastic may not be allowed for hot water use.
If your house has a crawl space or basement, repiping is not too bad, I have done two houses in copper, and frankly it was not that hard.
If you are on a slab and the pipes are in the slab, call a pro, and bring money in wads.

To soak the bowl above the water line with vinegar or some stronger acid, wet a paper towel in the vinegar and lay it up against the bowl wall. With a little luck it will cling there long enough to work on the stains. Have the bottom of the paper in vinegar, and it will wick up to keep it from drying.

Unless the glaze on the inside of the bowl is already destroyed, don’t use a pumice stone on it. The scratching will make the bowl stain faster, and it will be more difficult to clean, forever. I’m speaking from many years experience as a janitor. At the behest of one new boss, a couple of us were assigned to spend a whole weekend pumice-grinding a whole restroom, 10 bowls, to remove the stains. When we finished, the stains were gone, but every bit of the glaze was ruined. It was a very sad weekend for me. It was like being assigned to wash a car with a wire brush.

The other sad part was the damage to my hands. Oh, we had sturdy waterproof gloves, so it didn’t grind through my skin. My joints and tendons were injured, though. On Monday, I had to use both hands to pick up a bottle of beer. I got my grip strength back after several weeks, but my thumbs…I can’t play a guitar anymore. It hurts too much.

Oops. I got so brung down telling you all that, that I forgot to talk about the tank. They’re usually unglazed inside, so you can grind all you want in there. However, you must suck out the pumice grit with a wet vac. If you clog up the ring of holes at the top of the bowl, your chance of getting it unclogged is very slim; you’ll need a new toilet.

Why bother? That rust is on the inside of the tank, you don’t see it, and it doesn’t bother anything. Is their some reason you think you need to remove it?

I’m with the why bother comment. No real reason to put in any effort into cleaning the inside of the tank.

If you really want an easy way to clean iron stains in standing water the product of choice is anything wit sodium hydrosulfate. Like ‘rust out’ or ‘iron out’ Dump a couple table spoons of it into the toilet tank and wait a few hours the stain will magical disapear.

For the orange and yellow staining thats indicitive of iron and/or manganese. Both of them require levels well beyond the level they cause staining to be considered a health concearn. Even though you have public water it is still very possible they are still in the water.

Thanks for all the suggestions/comments.

I’m renting the house since moving into it a few months ago to shorten my commute to 3 minutes. Location, location, although extra costs over former apartment living exceed any commuting $$ costs. But no traffic mess.

I do not have the option of making repairs/repiping. The owner buys houses at foreclosure auctions and is slow to act on some repeated complaints.

I will not move out unless the water utility tells me the water is unhealthful and that it cannot be made healthy easily, perhaps with filtering.

My only thought on cleaning the inside of the tank was that that might be contributing to the stains in the bowl, but that was a stupid (duh) idea.

Still waiting for the water utility’s test results , but I expect them to say it’s the house piping, not their problem. The visible pipes under the sinks are copper.

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