Why Should You Clean & Descale Your Iron and How to Do It?
One of the common household appliances is a cloth iron. Ironing clothes is an inseparable part of our everyday life. This simple appliance is better and more advanced every day to ensure our clothes are wrinkle-free, smooth and pristine. But with complexity comes the need for good militance and irons need good care to perform well. With water being the main ingredient of every iron or steam iron, limescale is an unavoidable problem. Therefore, you should descale iron regularly to ensure it is doing its job well.
In this article, we’ll learn how to descale an iron quickly using different methods.
Why You Need to Descale an Iron
As mentioned, almost all modern irons use water to maintain the temperature and generate steam to get rid of wrinkles on the clothes. While you can use distilled or purified water, many still use tap water.
Tap water isn’t pure and comes with minerals that form timescales inside the iron’s water tank or on the soleplate blocking the steam channels and leaving marks on cloths.
If you never descale your iron, limescale deposits will impact its performance and reduce its lifespan considerably. Therefore, not only the iron use more energy to get hot but also requires more repair and maintenance.
Read More: How to Stain Off Cloths?
How Often You Should Descale an Iron
The frequency of descaling depends on two main factors. First, the hardness of the water in the area you live and second, how often you iron your clothes. It is recommended to descale irons every 3 to 6 months depending on water hardness and frequency of ironing. Also, steam generator irons require frequent descaling around once every 1 to 3 months.
Read More: Replacement and Cleaning Frequency for Every Cleaning Equipment
Best Ways to Clean & Descale an Iron Quickly
Descaling an iron isn’t time-consuming, especially with many liquid iron descalers available in the market. But if you prefer to use green cleaning and descaling products, there are ways to do that as well. What follows are the best ways to descale the iron and clean the iron soleplate.
#1 Commercial Iron Descalers
Commercial iron descalers are liquid descales especially formulated to break down and remove limescale from irons and similar home appliances. To descale an iron using liquid dealers, follow these steps:
- Unplug the iron and let it cool down.
- Full the iron’s water tank with the liquid iron descaler. The amount of liquid and the water ratio is written on the product label.
- Plug in the iron and wait for it to heat up. Then, hold the steam over the sink or the bathtub and press the steam button. Do this a few times until all or most of the solution is expelled and turned into steam.
- Fill the water tank with clean water and rinse the iron steam channels with steam.
- Clean the iron soleplate with a damp microfibre cloth. The soleplate might still be hot, so be careful.
Read More: How to Clean & Polish Gold Jewellery?
#2 DIY Descaling Solution
If you don’t want to use commercial descalers or don’t have quick access to liquid iron descalers, you can still descale the iron using ingredients you have around the house.
The best DIY descaling solution for irons is white vinegar. This method is similar to the previous method. However, instead of filling the water tank with liquid descaler, fill it up with an equal amount of vinegar and water.
Let the iron heat up and use the steam button to clean and descale the iron. Rinse the iron water tank and steam channels with clean water afterwards and wipe the soleplate.
Read More: How to Clean & Polish Stainless Still Appliances?
#3 Cleaning Iron Soleplate
In many instances, descaling the iron and its steam channels isn’t enough. The soleplate may be so dirty and it requires a deep clean after you descaled the iron. If you don’t clean the iron’s soleplate, it may leave rust marks on the cloth when you’re ironing.
The best and safest way to clean the iron soleplate is baking soda paste. Follow these steps to clean the soleplate:
- Unplug the iron and let it cool down.
- In the meantime, mix a spoonful of baking soda with a little water to create a paste. It is better to add water slowly until a paste is formed.
- Use a soft brush or a non-abrasive scrubber to apply the paste on the soleplate.
- Wipe the paste and residues with a clean and damp microfibre cloth.
Read More: Essential Cleaning Supplies for The Office
Conclusion
Iron is an inseparable home appliance that we rely on to ensure our clothes are smooth and pristine. Irons, like any other appliance, require regular cleaning and maintenance. Since they use water to generate steam, descaling them is also a necessity to prolong their lifespan. In this article, we discussed why and how often you should descale your iron. Also, we provided quick and safe ways to descale your iron using commercial liquid iron descalers as well as DIY green descalers.
The information provided in this article will help you realise the importance of descaling an iron and how to descale it effectively without damaging the iron.
