If you descale it it will be more effective at cleaning clothes. OTOH
its not the quickest job. The worst should be offchippable, then its
acids.

Citric is hopelessly slow, but safe. Use it boiling to wake it up.
Hydrochloric is fast but eats anything it sees. Sulphamic and
phosphoric somewhere between the 2.

Note acid is somewhat incompatible with eyeballs - well, I dont know
who's reading this.

Maybe do a monthly boil wash with citric acid in future. Note its more
effective if you let the wash reach boiling then switch it off
overnight, then on again to complete the wash in the morning.

Descaling does produce a small risk of leaks and element failure.

Why dont you answer your own q: spend 2 hours and =A32 descaling, or
spend 200 on another machine? Doesnt seem much of a challenging q to me


NT