Removing Scratches from a Toilet Bowl

LESLIE: Jan in Iowa, you’ve got The Money Pit.  How can we help you today?

JAN: Yeah. My commode is about five years old and it got clogged. I tried vinegar and baking soda, Liquid-Plumr, plunging it out, anything else I could think of because I really did not want to snake it with the rusty snake that I had. Because I knew what I was going to do. Well, after three days, I finally snaked it and got the clog out but now I’ve got all these scrapes with rust, in the bottom of the toilet bowl, that cannot be removed.

LESLIE: OK. And you’re sure they’re actual scrapes or scratches and not just a rust marking?

JAN: I think so. I’ve tried to scrub it with a toilet brush and toilet-bowl cleaner and as it – today, when I heard your show and you were talking about don’t – to some other guy – don’t use anything abrasive to remove the surface off of the inside of the commode, like – and you suggested to him polishing compound and something else but be very diligent. And there, right then, I thought, “Uh, oh.” Well, I messed up, because I have totally interrupted the surface.

TOM: Let’s see if we can pull you back from the brink here.

So, you are correct. It’s not polishing compound, it’s rubbing compound. It’s used mostly for auto-body work but it’s mildly abrasive and it can remove those stains.

There are also some cleansing products that work well, right, Leslie?

LESLIE: Yeah. Bar Keepers Friend, which is sort of like a mild abrasive, that tends to work very well on a porcelain surface that does have smaller scratches in it. I mean I don’t know how bad your scratches are but it’s worth a try.

You may want to drain the toilet out first, just to give you some more ease in actually getting to the scratched area but not 100-percent necessary. Although it does help if you sort of rub it in and then let it sit on.

TOM: Yeah, I would turn the water off to the toilet bowl and flush it so that the bowl is fairly dry or fairly empty. This way, you can kind of let that sit on there for a while and really do go – and really go to work. And then you could rinse it off.

So give that a shot and let us know how you do. Thank you so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

JAN: OK. Thank you so much.