How to quickly clean the steam generator from scale

Like an elec­tric ket­tle, scale can build up in the steam gen­er­a­tor. The hard­er the water, the faster this insol­u­ble plaque forms. It not only degrades the qual­i­ty of the device, but can also cause equip­ment fail­ure. Of course, the for­ma­tion of scale can be pre­vent­ed, for exam­ple, use only dis­tilled, that is, salt-free water, and com­plete­ly drain the liq­uid after using the appli­ance. But a small amount of plaque can still appear soon­er or lat­er. In this arti­cle we will tell you how to clean house­hold appli­ances from sol­id deposits on the sur­face of heat­ing ele­ments with pro­fes­sion­al prepa­ra­tions, impro­vised means, we will tell you in which cas­es you should not clean it your­self.

How to clean the steam generator from scale with special means

On sale you can find many house­hold chem­i­cals designed to remove scale from appli­ances such as elec­tric irons, steam gen­er­a­tors, steam irons, steam­ers, elec­tric ket­tles, cof­fee machines, etc. It is bet­ter to give pref­er­ence to nat­ur­al prepa­ra­tions based on nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents, for exam­ple, acids. Such tools have many advan­tages:

1. Effec­tive­ly remove limescale, cal­ci­um and min­er­al deposits in any devices that oper­ate on water.

2. Facil­i­tate the process of iron­ing or steam­ing, make the result bet­ter.

3. Restore effi­cien­cy and extend the life of house­hold appli­ances.

4. Elim­i­nate the risk of cor­ro­sion of heat­ing ele­ments.

5. Reduce ener­gy con­sump­tion.

6. Return home appli­ances aes­thet­ic appear­ance.

7. Eco­nom­i­cal to use.

8. As a rule, they are odor­less.

It is not dif­fi­cult to use spe­cial liq­uids to elim­i­nate insol­u­ble sed­i­ment, just fol­low the man­u­fac­tur­er’s instruc­tions, which can be found on the pack­age label. In gen­er­al, the clean­ing process looks some­thing like this:

1. Pour 200 ml. funds into the water tank of the steam gen­er­a­tor.

2. Turn on the descal­ing sys­tem, if there is no sys­tem, use the steam sys­tem.

3. Repeat step 2 twice using clean water to com­plete­ly remove the scale.

In order to clean the steam gen­er­a­tor your­self, it is essen­tial to fol­low the appli­ance man­u­fac­tur­er’s instruc­tions for descal­ing. Since clean­ers are acidic prod­ucts, wear rub­ber gloves and take pre­cau­tions on sur­faces that are not resis­tant to acids (plas­tic, chrome, etc.).

Here is a list of indus­tri­al flu­ids that can be used to clean the machine:

1. Green&Clean Pro­fes­sion­al.

2. Descaler Glu­to­clean, con­cen­trate.

3. Aston­ish descal­ing con­cen­trate.

4. Descaler Philips CA6700/10.

5. Con­cen­trate for descal­ing auto­mat­ic machines OPTIMAL PRO (also suit­able for steam gen­er­a­tors).

6. Descaler KARCHER.

7. Anti­nakipin.

8. top house.

Such drugs are not too expen­sive, for 250–5 dol­lars you can find an excel­lent tool that will help you quick­ly and safe­ly clean the steam gen­er­a­tor or oth­er house­hold appli­ance from scale. If clean­ing needs to be car­ried out urgent­ly, and there is no spe­cial liq­uid at hand, you can car­ry out the pro­ce­dure using cit­ric acid, vine­gar and sim­i­lar impro­vised means.

Using citric acid, soda, vinegar

A soapy solu­tion can be used to clean the sole­plate of the steam gen­er­a­tor, which also has scale build-up around the steam out­lets. To pre­pare the prod­uct, you can take laun­dry soap and soda ash in equal parts. Instead of cal­cined, you can also use ordi­nary food, but it is bet­ter to give pref­er­ence to the first, as it has stronger cleans­ing prop­er­ties. So, grind the soap on a veg­etable grater (or with a knife), mix with soda, pour water in such a way that you get a slur­ry of sour cream con­sis­ten­cy. Wet the sponge in the solu­tion, apply soap to the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sur­face, rub and leave for 15 min­utes. Then care­ful­ly three again, wipe the sole with a damp cloth or a clean, damp sponge until the soap is com­plete­ly removed. Also, to clean the sole of the steam gen­er­a­tor, you can use hydro­gen per­ox­ide, ammo­nia (be care­ful, it has an unpleas­ant odor and can cause nau­sea), soda dilut­ed with water.

Inside, house­hold appli­ances can be cleaned of sol­id deposits using:

1. 
   cit­ric acid. Take 25 grams of prod­uct per 1 liter of water, pour the mix­ture into the tank and turn on the device. Let it work for as long as nec­es­sary so that all the water is used up. Rinse the tank with warm water.

2. 
   table vine­gar, mixed with water in equal pro­por­tions. Fill the steam gen­er­a­tor tank about a quar­ter full, and turn on the appli­ance — let it work until the liq­uid has evap­o­rat­ed. Rinse the tank sev­er­al times with clean water.

3. 
   Mix­tures of water, soda and table vine­gar. In half a liter of water, add two table­spoons of soda and the same amount of vine­gar, wait until the com­po­nents are com­plete­ly dis­solved, pour into the tank of the device and turn it on, let it work until the liq­uid evap­o­rates. Then rinse the tank.

While clean­ing is tak­ing place, it is not nec­es­sary for the device to work “idle”. It is bet­ter to take a piece of unnec­es­sary fab­ric and steam it so that scale par­ti­cles set­tle on the mate­r­i­al.

How to descale a self-cleaning steam generator

On Tefal irons and steam gen­er­a­tors or irons from oth­er com­pa­nies with a self-clean­ing sys­tem, do not use a spe­cial descal­ing agent or vine­gar — they can ruin the appli­ance. In this case, to clean the device, pro­ceed in accor­dance with the man­u­fac­tur­er’s instruc­tions. Care meth­ods dif­fer depend­ing on the mod­el of the steam gen­er­a­tor and its design. For exam­ple, ANTI-CALC car­tridges and brush­es for col­lect­ing scale are installed in Tefal prod­ucts. Car­tridges need to be changed, and brush­es need to be washed. The device also noti­fies you of the need for clean­ing or replace­ment of com­po­nents in var­i­ous ways — the indi­ca­tor lights up or an audi­ble sig­nal sounds, the device stops pro­duc­ing steam. And Philips brand steam gen­er­a­tors have a self-clean­ing func­tion from scale (Easy De-Calc Plus). Although the meth­ods for clean­ing sol­id deposits are indi­vid­ual and depend on the appli­ance, a dia­gram of stan­dard actions can be giv­en, which is retained in many mod­els of steam gen­er­a­tors:

1. 
   Car­tridge change. The device is removed from the base in which the car­tridge is locat­ed. The car­tridge is removed, the rub­ber pad is removed from it, a new con­sum­able is placed inside the base along with the pad.

2. 
   Easy De-Calc Plus descal­ing sys­tem. Dis­con­nect the steam gen­er­a­tor from the mains, wait until it cools down. Take the con­tain­er into which the liq­uid will be drained, sub­sti­tute it under the valve, turn it coun­ter­clock­wise. After com­plete drain­ing of the liq­uid, the valve is closed. In order to clean the device more thor­ough­ly, which is rec­om­mend­ed to be done at least once every 1–2 months (depend­ing on the fre­quen­cy of use), you need to put the valve in the “Closed” posi­tion and pour half a liter of water into the tank. The steam gen­er­a­tor is turned on and allowed to run until the liq­uid has com­plete­ly evap­o­rat­ed. Then the device is dis­con­nect­ed from the mains, allowed to cool and the remain­ing water is drained from the valve.

3. 
   Smart clean­ing (Philips appli­ances). Pour so much water into the tank so that it is half full. Install the device in a con­tain­er for drain­ing water, which should be includ­ed in the kit. Hold down the but­ton that says Calc Clean until the device starts beep­ing. Leave the device in the con­tain­er for the time it emits a sig­nal, you do not need to touch it, it will be hot. After the sig­nal stops, the device can be turned off from the net­work, clean­ing is over.

4. 
   Self-clean­ing func­tion. Just fill in the water, turn on the desired mode, the device will car­ry out all the nec­es­sary manip­u­la­tions on its own, you just have to drain the liq­uid.

If there is no instruc­tion sup­plied with the steam gen­er­a­tor or it is lost, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to clean the device from scale with­out first con­sult­ing with a spe­cial­ist — the sell­er or the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­pa­ny. Go to the brand’s web­site, there should be a feed­back form, write what mod­el of house­hold appli­ances you have, ask for instruc­tions or tell you how to prop­er­ly descale the device. There are also sites on the net­work where you can find and down­load instruc­tions for house­hold appli­ances, you just need to make sure that the man­u­al is orig­i­nal, from the man­u­fac­tur­er.