Why is my iron shooting out brown stuff?

[OrangeLily]

The ironing is normally DH's domain but I'm doing it at the moment. Why have I had to put three different things in the wash as its decided to splat brown watery stuff out? What is this and how can I clean it/stop it doing this tomorrow when I've rewashed all the bits?

It's one of those big steam iron thingymagigies with the big base on the bottom.

Help! Ironing is not my area of expertise...(and yes I'm well aware MN doesn't like ironing).

It's rust. Just let it heat up loads and shoot it all out onto something old until it clears.

I had this with an old iron - if you can find the original instructions it should tell how to clean it - mine was something like put it on lowest setting, pump steam button x times and voila all the crap came out and ironing without brown stain re-commenced.

If your iron has a water reservoir make sure it's emptied after every use as this will help stop any sludge buildup.

Excellent thanks. It's only about 18 months old sonI hope it isn't falling to bits. DH is not going to be impressed if I take a job over for a wee while just to break the damn thing.

It might depend on where you are, but we live in a hard water area and limescale builds up really quickly in appliances. When I first started taking over ironing at my parent's house I was and over the brown stuff suddenly making its way onto the clean clothes.

Best descaler by a longshot is Kilrock. Easy to use and very effective. You can use it on other things too (kettles, shower heads etc).

PS If it is hard water, then using filtered water makes a big difference. We've always had a Brita jug because I've always lived in hard water areas, our iron is now 3 years old but still looks new and no limescale.

Thanks but we live in a soft water area and don't have the issue with anything else.