[Greenbuilding] scale buildup in toilet prevents toilet from flushing!

[molasses at q.com]

Rig up a container that releases a little lemon juice into the tank when it fills? So you have a little bit of acid with every flush? Would that work to prevent it? 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Reuben Deumling" <9watts at gmail.com> 
To: "Greenbuilding" <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2012 12:33:32 PM 
Subject: [Greenbuilding] scale buildup in toilet prevents toilet from flushing! 

I learn something new every day. It never occurred to me that what my renters were reporting as low performing toilets could be traced to scale buildup that had completely blocked portions of the toilet's internal plumbing. Certainly there was a visible yellowish layer below the water line at the bottom of the bowl, but I figured that was merely staining of the bowl but not 1/2" thick layer of very hard limestone.... 
I am now reading online that this is apparently quite common. Lye, caustic soda, lemon juice and various chemical cocktails based on one or another of these are recommended. Fine, but this house is on a septic system. How to guard against throwing the baby out with the bathwater without uninstalling the toilet? For that matter how to clean the pipes which I discovered were also suffering a similar fate - at least where I could see. 


I can of course instruct my renters to do a more thorough job of cleaning the parts of the toilet they can see, but this doesn't do much for the other areas. Are there filters that can prevent this? Other ideas? 

Thanks very much. 

Oh, and the water company washes its hands of this; claims they hear about staining but not scale buildup. 

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