Will Vinegar Descale my Truckmount?

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Will vinegar do a good job of descaling my trouckmount? Its cheap and readily availabe.

 

[Larry B]

George

Dont know about that but we run the stuff from jonDon through the TM and all the porty's and it works good.

 

[AshleyMckendree]

Vinegar has acetic acid in it, I dump 2/3 gallons of Vinegar in my empty water tank and run my system including my solution hose and wand,

Then turn it off and let it set over night.

Fill tank will fresh water in the morning and let it all flush out... be prepared to clean all of your screens out, they will be clogged with lime that didn't dissolve.

Also here is a quote from wikipedia on Descalers:

A descaling agent, also known as descaling, anti-limestone, anti-limescale, anti-lime, or anti-scale, is a solution to remove limescale, e.g. from water taps, kettles, toilets and water pipes. Descaling agents usually contain an acid as the active ingredient. They are available in liquid form, e.g. aqueous solutions of acetic acid, lactic acid, citric acid, sorbic acid, phosphoric acid, hydrochloric acid, sulfamic acid or in solid form, e.g. sodium bisulfate powder.

Descalers do not necessarily need to be acidic (although many are). Often the mechanism of descaling is done via chelation. Descalants of this sort can be the most powerful. Phosphonates in particular are well known scale inhibitors.

 

[Out of Character - 0]

We use the same way Ashley does. Our units don't have a water box so I use a portable to pump it into the hx's. It also descales the porty.

 

[kmdineen]

Every couple of weeks or so I circulate uncut vinegar in my Butler system for 10 or 15 minuets. I turn the machine off and let it sit for one or two hours, then circulate for 10 to 15 minutes, this includes the live solution line. Then I flush the system with water. This procedure keeps the system squeaky clean.

 

[Greenie]

The Judson O2 rinse is heavily Chelated, I'd bet ya if you ran that for the year, you wouldn't have a drop of scale.

 

[Blue Monarch]

I've always used HM's Clear Water Rinse. Having soft water, I've never really noticed scaling anyway. I just descale for the hell of it I guess.

I've always wondered. Would soft water descale a machine over time? Let's say I didn't charge my softener as often as I should and some buildup occurred. After I charged my softener, would the resulting soft water descale the system over time?

 

[The Preacher]

i know Ultra Rinse from DooDaddy will. i used it to do some rugs and furniture and the next day i had to pull my fitting at the machine and it spit out some nasty white scale, probably more emulsifier than scale, but it cleaned it out real good!!!

 

[hogjowl]

That could explain why the jets on my wands are clogging up every time I turn around. I've been running JJ's rinse since purchasing it, and I bet the dude who used to own it (apartment hack) ran an emulsifier through it from day one. Or, worse ... he ran Bob Vawters recipe.

 

[Rex Tyus]

Will vinegar do a good job of descaling my trouckmount? Its cheap and readily availabe.

It has been my experience that it will do a decent job of maintaining or preventing build up when used as described. If a system has been neglected or is in need of true descaling it lacks the concentration and power to correct the situation.

 

[Larry B]

After reading some of the above posts I'm wondering

Should the solution line be descaled also?

We always run it through the system but never through the solution lines.

 

[Rex Tyus]

It is much more difficult for scale to build up on the lining of a hose than to metal. However that being said it certainly wouldn't hurt and it may be beneficial.

 

[Larry B]

Would you think that descaling the lines would damage the rubber lining of the hose?

 

[Rex Tyus]

It depends on what you use to descale the hoses with. I rinse with an acetic acid based rinse as often as I rinse with emulsifier. Scale has not been a problem in my hoses. I would say if you ever use an acid rinse like for furniture or rugs it should not be a concern.

 

[TimP]

I'm about to try some Prochem Heat Wave just for that very reason of emulsifier build up. I'll let you guys know what I think about it compared to the point blue I've been running.

 

[Greenie]

I think Marty nailed it, JJ ain't acid, it's neutral, but performs like an acid, and I didn't have to read the label this time.

As for Dirk, I don't think "soft" water is gonna reverse any scaling, but there is no way in hell you ahve any scale with HM clear watr rinse, good product, just a little spendy, I only used it for piss jobs.

 

[John Watson]

With in the past month I replaced my SS feather touch valve on my year old green horn to a brass one as per Greenie. (Mine had started to leak) While changing I noticed that the steel fitting that goes from NPT to a flare nut was black and slightly corroded inside while the brass and SS fittings all appeared to look ok. 99% of the time this has had Judsons O2 rinse. Only thing I can contribute this to is the corrosion to is some sort of electrolisis from the different alloys in all the metals used through out my TM system