Last week I was listening to an article about housecleaning on Woman's Hour, as one does. A woman who makes a living from cleaning others' houses was being interviewed and mentioned she uses denture cleaning tablets to clean toilets.
Well, I thought I'd try the trick and bought a couple of tubes of denture tablets. Put one in the boys' toilet and waited half an hour. Nothing. Chucked in another and waited another half hour. Nothing. Threw in a 3rd and still nothing - then gave up.
Thinking about it I couldn't for the life of me understand how it could work. Calcium carbonate build up in toilets is alkaline. Bicarb - which is basically what denture tablets are - is also alkaline. Simple chemistry says it shouldn't work.
Looked it up on Google and there were thousands of references to the method, but among them was one Which report that said it was a load of old rubbish that few actually bothered to check. You need an acid to combat calcium carbonate, which I why I've always used vinegar, that I buy in 5 litre containers for £2.50 from a local grocer.
I queried Hay, what with her being a biochemist. She said that bicarb will bind to organic stains and remove them, which is why it's used as a denture cleaner, but wouldn't touch limescale, which is the main problem in our toilets. While denture tablets may remove the organic stains, it doesn't remove the calcium deposits on which they form in the first place. Vinegar, on the other hand, removes the calcium, which takes away any of the stains that form on it.
Don't necessarily believe everything you see or read on the internet.
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