Get rid of limescale in your kettle in minutes with this handy hack.
Most households use their kettles regularly. From boiling water for hot drinks like tea and coffee to filling hot water bottles in the winter and sometimes even quickly filling a pan with hot water for dinner, kettles are among the most used kitchen appliances.
Due to their frequent use, it’s not uncommon for kettles to become covered in a layer of limescale, particularly if you live in an area with hard water. Limescale is a hard, chalky substance that forms when hard water evaporates, and it’s common inside kettles because it’s left behind when water boils and turns into steam.
You need to regularly clean your kettle in order to remove the limescale and stop it from building up. And according to one cleaning fan, you don’t need to splash out on expensive cleaning products to get your kettle sparkling.
In fact, the only item you need is something you probably already have in your fridge or fruit bowl.
If you’ve used some lemon juice or lemon zest in a recipe recently and you’ve got leftover lemon lying around that needs using before it goes off, cleaning guru Sophie on TikTok recommends throwing it into your kettle.
Slicing up some fresh lemon and adding it to a kettle filled with water and boiling it can help to lift limescale in just minutes – and you don’t even need to scrub the appliance afterwards.
Sophie proved the effectiveness of the hack in her video, where she filmed herself adding lemon slices to a kettle with some stains on the bottom and putting it on to boil. Once it had boiled, she tipped the water and the lemon slices out into the sink and showed the inside of the appliance once again – and it was sparkling clean.
Commenters on Sophie’s video thanked the woman for her helpful advice. Some even shared similar hacks they had seen before that used alternative products such as white vinegar.
One person said: “Just put vinegar [in your kettle] and leave it overnight. No need to boil it. Dump the next day. You’ll be surprised with the result! Then just put water and boil it to remove the vinegar’s smell.”
Another added: “I plan on doing this to clean my kettle tomorrow!” While a third wrote: ” I did this yesterday. I let it sit for half an hour with the lemon. Boiled it again and then rinsed with cold water.”
