Maisie

I have just been reading some old posts about limescale being a problem. Is it possible to buy water softening agents (like Calgon) in Turkey? Or even plain soda? What about electric limescale inhibitors like we can get in the UK that are fixed to the rising main here? Is such a beast available and anybody know if they work? Maisie

altinkum kev

Hi
My wife only uses bottled water for the kettle and cooking and she adds a good spoonful of salt in the washing machine during the wash cycle, keeps everything clear of lime scale.

KayaKoyuOldBoy

All of those things are available over here.

It depends on how you view the cost. We had to have a new heating element fitted in a washing machine because the old one had been ruined by limescale over 3 years. It cost us 80 YTL. If we'd been using Calgon for 3 years, how much would we have spent? Calgon dishwasher tablets are double or treble the price of standard supermarket ones.

As far as I know, most bottled water still contains the minerals that cause limescale.

Electric and magnetic inhibitors are available and have had positive write-ups but I don't know about the cost of purchase over here.

biggles

i took a magnetic 1 over ,no need to wire it up .i think it cost about £15 as for wash machine use old fashioned soda crystals . again take them out with you . my mum used to use soda way back in the late 50s.

biggles

i also have a electric limescale reducer fitted here in uk under the kitchen sink and i swear by it as this is a hard water area and untill we had it fitted we had 2 new hotwater cylinders fitted in the space of 5 years. the old ones were full of scale . also if you have a cold water storage tank . hang a fernox limescale reducer bag in the tank ,cost £14 from plumbing shops. it lasts 5 months and really cuts down the scale. we just had a new copper cyl installed because we moved it to another location ,and whwn we checked it there was hardly any scale in it, and it was 8 years old . the fernox scale bag obviously goes in the cold water storage tank ,so it dont affect your drinking [mains ] water feed.

nwclio

Hi I have read reports from the America army that magnetic or electric field limescale inhibitors are little or no good a way of reducing limescale. This info is posted on the net so everyone has access to it.
On the other hand I can fit a twin water filter system to your home that will remove fine particles,smells,tastes and chemicals and drastically reduce and remove excisting limescale in your home. The fitting and purchase of the filters come to 250ytl and the yearly refill costs would be 25ytl, so after fitting, the yearly cost of not using calgon and not having to replace your elements in your heater and solar panels etc is very low.Any more info just ask..cheers

biggles

well that may well be the case but i have lived in this house for 30 years and these houses are built on chalk ground and it is an exceptional hard water area. since i have used the above fitments there has been an amazing rediction in scale . and i aint selling them .i am just telling it as it is. i think the fernox superconcentrate bag in the tank does the most good ,but obviously you cant do that in turkey if the water comes straight in with no storage tank . if you could put these bags in a storage tank then yes it would be really worth it .i presume the tanks on the roofs are sealed. our turkish home has no tank ,it comes in direct from supply [so i cant use the fernox in turkey.

KayaKoyuOldBoy

Anyone know if Fernox, or similar, is available in Turkey ?

cheeky chops

when we had our washing machine fitted in august this year we had a filter fitted to the pipe work
to use calgon constantly would work out very expensive and as kkob says its cheaper to replace the element when it is no longer doing its job
the water filter is called AUQA FILTER it has a screw fitting so it is easy to change. inside it has crystals which hold the harmful elements back not to enter the washer. when the crystals are running low the plunger rises to the replace line, the length of time it lasts obviously depends on how many washes per week
we were told it would last 9 months if we lived there but only using it for 6 weeks a year it would last 3-4 years time will tell.
it has a uk contact number for replacements but when i phoned them they had no idea what i was talking about and said it is probably only made and supplied to turkey and similar countries with high mineral content
although there is a spare cartridge with it i think when we go back we will have to find a supplier of replacements.
it cost us £30 and that was off the plumber so it may well be cheaper from b+q or similar in turkey