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While traveling through Europe, most AirBnBs had electric kettles and they all had gross scale deposits in them so I ended up boiling water in a pot.
by wintermutestwin 4y ago
While traveling through Europe, most AirBnBs had electric kettles and they all had gross scale deposits in them so I ended up boiling water in a pot.
- ErikCorry 4y agoIt's calcium. It won't hurt you, and you can't taste it.
- stavros 4y agoWill it also make my bones stronger? Where does it come from? Was it in the water to begin with?
- eru 4y agoSee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water
- drdrey 4y agoYes it was in the water to begin with, that’s what hard water is.
- stavros 4y agoAhh right, hard water, thanks.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y agoDon’t know about your bones but all tap water has some minerals in it.
- stephen_g 4y agoGood thing too, because if you drink demineralised water it pulls electrolytes out of your cells (I think by osmosis) and eventually you also end up with decreasing bone density.
- samus 4y agoMost tap water is far from being demineralised. It's a problem if you have a reverse osmosis filtration system though.
- eru 4y agoYou can definitely taste it. If you care about energy efficiency, you should descale your kettles every so often.
- nephanth 4y agoIt's not even hard, just boil a solution of 1/2 white vinegar + 1/2 water, and the CaCO3 (+ 2H(+) from the vinegar) changes back to Ca(2+) + CO2 + H2O You can even see the bubbles from the CO2
- Moru 4y agoIt's pretty inconvenient when you are in an unknown location on a hotel. But yes, some areas of Europe has very hard water.
- eru 4y agoFor making coffee or tea, soft water is preferable. For drinking straight up, hard water tastes better. At least to me. Perhaps because that's what I grew up with in central Europe. Btw, the Romans also built their towns preferably in places with hard water.
- Moru 4y agoI come from a soft water area and I prefer the soft water for drinking. Our water cooker never needs vinegar, it's just not getting the residue :-)
- Adverblessly 4y agoI'd recommend using citric acid instead, they sell it here as "lemon salt" so it comes in an easy to use salt shaker. I usually put it in the minimum amount of water required to safely boil it and a small amount depending on how heavy the deposits are (usually up to a spoon is enough for me), though you could also just pour it in and wait. It works really well and doesn't leave the same smell. When I'd previously used vinegar I'd had to boil another round of water and throw it away just to clean the kettle from the vinegar itself, but with citric acid there's no need (just don't drink the citric acid, it tastes like acid :)).
- Avicebron 4y agoAdding a little vinegar and water and boiling it will often remove most of the scale. Maybe hard when you're travelling, but at home it works fine.
- arrosenberg 4y agoYou clean that by boiling vinegar and water, takes 3 minutes.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoI'd gladly take an electric kettle over what I had to use the last time I was in an American hotel room to heat water, which was the bedside drip coffee maker. Water heated through that still tasted like bad coffee.
- dopidopHN 4y agoThrow some white vinegar. Boil. Rince. Clean.