Descaling with Citric Acid

[donkey]

I know some of you use citric acid to descale your van boilers. So bought a tub of Anhydrous Citric Acid 100% food grade. Before using on the van I experimented on the hob kettle indoors. General opinion appears to be 1 tablespoon per litre. After 24 hours, no noticeable difference, so tried bringing it close to the boil and leaving for a further 24 hours, not much had changed.
Do I drastically up the dilution rate?
Obviously I would not know how effective it would be in the van system, which is why I chose to try it out first, with something I could monitor.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

Geoff

 

[Jim]

We use it all the time in the home, two or three heaped tablespoons will sort a kettle and shower heads etc.

 

[Reallyretired]

You do need a pretty strong solution. Citric is a very weak acid. I usually bung a 1kg bag in the water tank. Run it through the system to fill the boiler put the water on hot for an hour and then leave it for a day before flushing through. It needs to be thoroughly flushed through otherwise it makes very bad tea.

 

[Winger]

I used it once and ended up with a leaking Ricoh plastic tap, so not for me

 

[Slopey]

Do I drastically up the dilution rate?

You need to drastically reduce the dilution rate - probably around a 5-10% solution to get a decent result.

(you could use half a litre and 25g rather than a whole litre and 50g etc..)

Best to use warm/hot water to dissolve the Citric. I make industrial quantities of it at work and it will take ages to dissolve in cold water.

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[donkey]

Thanks guys. looks as though I need to up the concentration. My concern was that I may be completely wasting my time using it in the van, as I would never know if it had indeed done any good or not.
I did view a Youtube video of a chap descaling his kettle, and he said "As I had not done this for a long time I am going to use a third of a cup measure, but if doing it regularly I would only need a half cup measure"??? Please save us from Youtube idiots

Geoff

 

[Slopey]

There was a post on twitter from an MP yesterday which said one in five of her constituents were already affected by something, and as it was scheduled to double, that would rise to one in 10.....