Water Heater Sediment Cleaning

[The patriot]

I leave mine as is and it just seems to keep working. I replaced it about 5 years ago.

I will however flush it this summer, but I wont remove any elements to do it.

I shower with 145 deg water. If mine's set at 120 I'll freeze while showering. :-laf

I suppose I shouldnt be suprised when I get $200+ electric bills in the winter, and $400 + in the summer.

 

[HoleshotHolset]

Remember the movie "A Christmas Story"? Remember how the dad was always fighting with the furnace?



[WHY WHY WHY do they make them so they fail in the ON position!?!?!?!?!? ]

One of my favorite quotes of all time: "In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan. " :-laf



Man, now I don't feel bad for shutting my heater down when I'm not going to be home for a day or two... I'd hate for ~10kW worth of elements to stay on and then burn up/short out.



Matt

 

[R C Cola]

Water heaters

I read thru the whole thing looking for simple solutions. Draining, anode, both great. The pre-filter mentioned is cheap and does a great job. Tankless has been tested now and has proven cheaper to operate than tank heaters, sidesteps the whole problem. What ! no one mentioned magnets, they work and I don't sell-em. Magnets and filters combined and you will have great taste and the inside of all pipes (not just the heater) will be clean and not need to be replaced in 25 years. R C

 

[rbattelle]

Filter is a great idea, but my water softener is before the heater and it seems to be fine. Besides, won't the softener filter out a lot of the sediment?



-Ryan

 

[The patriot]

It should remove the iron and minerals.

 

[rivercat]

A simple 50 micron inline filter in my well house pulls that crap out of my well water before it gets to the house. I was more conserned about clogging up the guts of my $1000 washing machine than losing a little efficiancy on my water heater.

 

[rbattelle]

So I bench tested the thermostat that was apparently bad only to find it seems to work fine. At least, I can get it to actuate using a lighter. I didn't measure the switching temperature, so I suppose it's possible that it's out of calibration and triggering at some terribly high temperature, but that seems unlikely.



The heater "seems" to be working now. At least, it turns itself on and off like it's supposed to. Time will tell.



-Ryan

 

[bighammer]

I replaced the cheapo drain valve at the bottom with a ball valve. I hook up a short hose and can open fully to wash the crud off the bottom easily. I have no drain close-by so I use a 5 gal bucket. I think the quick on-off action helps get the sediment out better anyway.

 

[rbattelle]

This one lasted 3 months

The third lower element burned out today. #@$%! I have a theory that the inside of the tank is coated with so much sediment that it's acting as an insulator, thereby preventing the thermostats from reading the correct water temperature. As a result, the lower thermostat is running nearly constantly, resulting in extremely short element life.



Started the drain procedure on it, but it won't drain (needs to be backflushed again). Shut off the drain, turn the water back on, now the lower element is leaking too.



So I'm done. I've reached the end of my rope with this unholy piece of crap. Tonight me and the wife will be going over to Sears to pick out a new water heater and have it professionally installed.



If I can save on installation costs (and for my own learning experience), I'm going to remove the old unit myself. Then I'm going to cut it open and take pictures of the inside. Then I'm going to smash it into a pancake with my 14-lb sledge. I can't wait.



Among the features I'll be looking for in the new heater:

No more than 3800 watt elements

Brass ball-valve drain



Anyone have any other advice? I've decided not to go with the Marathon unit (even though it's my favorite by far) because we won't be in this house long enough to justify the additional costs.



-Ryan

 

[The patriot]

You must have really crappy water.

I didnt want to start a new post for this, so here goes:

I flushed my HWH a few weeks ago. I didnt remove elements or anything, just rinsed with water till it ran clear. First time since I did the HWH... . about 7 years ago.

There wasnt too much in there. Some hard water scale. No rust like looking stuff.

What I DID notice after flushing it was the water was hotter. MUCH hotter!

I guess it was losing some effiency from silt etc on the elements.

I just thought it was kind of strange.

Eric

 

[The patriot]

Anyone have any other advice? I've decided not to go with the Marathon unit (even though it's my favorite by far) because we won't be in this house long enough to justify the additional costs.



-Ryan

Oh yea, I was thinking on going to the on demand type HWH.

The Takagi T-KD20 came highly recomended.

Eric

 

[rbattelle]

So I went to Sears last night. I can't recall ever being more disappointed in the knowledge of salesmen in my life. I knew it was bad when I asked a salesman to discuss electric water heaters and he proceeded to start examining a water softener. They had absolutely no clue about what they were selling, and their only purpose seemed to be to read the feature tags on the floor models to people who can't read them on their own.



I'm totally unimpressed with all of the Kenmore offerings. They only offer plastic drain valves (I want brass), and there are NO options for different elements.



So I spent the day researching. I'm now considering 2 models. I've got a quote request out for a Bradford White M-2-50S6DS (shortie 50-gallon, 2-element) with 3800 watt elements and a large "clean out" opening. That's a special order, and I'm waiting for a local plumber to call me back with a price. 6-year tank and parts warranty on it.



If that one proves too expensive, I'm thinking about going with a GE SmartWater 12-year unit. That one has a brass drain valve, but no options for elements (you get 4500 watt and that's that). It's advantages over the Bradford unit are double the warranty coverage and price.



I've decided to do the install myself.



-Ryan

 

[Little Bill]

Ryan,



The other thing to consider are the high surface area 4500 watt elements. They typically come with lifetime warranty. Watt density is 1/2 that of a standard element because surface area is 2X, so it will slow down your accumulation of calcium/magnesium carbonate. Home Depot has them in my area.

 

[rbattelle]

Bought the GE this morning. Started the drain process. Can't wait to get that POS out of the house today!



-Ryan

 

[rbattelle]

New unit is installed and in operation. Took less than 2 hours to install it, and that includes a run to the hardware store.



Now I'm trying to disassemble (cut open) the old one. Removing the insulation from the outside of the tank is a problem. It's that high-density stuff they put on the outside of houses. And it's glued in place. I'm trying to remove a band of it so I can slice the tank open.



-Ryan

 

[brods]

LOL, an ice chopper used as a scraper works ok..... but the foam gets everywhere. That stuff is tough! It is neat to see what failed. The couple I've seen were in pretty good shape overall, just some localized internal pitting that killed em.

 

[rbattelle]

LOL, an ice chopper used as a scraper works ok..... but the foam gets everywhere. That stuff is tough! It is neat to see what failed. The couple I've seen were in pretty good shape overall, just some localized internal pitting that killed em.

I might use this excuse to buy a sawzall!



-Ryan

 

[rbattelle]

It occurred to me this morning that my heater troubles began shortly after I put my water softener back into service (it was bypassed). Coincidence?



I bypassed the softener again this morning. I'm having it inspected ($$$) next week and I'll see what the softener people have to say about it.



Is it possible for a malfunctioning softener to deposit large quantities of sediment/minerals/water-heater killing things into the water?



-Ryan

 

[Little Bill]

Yes, if the bypass/flush valve is not funtioning then it is possible that all Ca/Mg captured on the resin can be released into the downstream house plumbing during regen and flushing. The total amount will be no greater that that which would have entered the system with the softener bypassed for the same time period. However, it would be present as a chloride, not a carbonate, and much less likely to precipitate on the elements unless you have really, really high levels of dissolved CO2 in your water.

 

[rbattelle]

Yes, if the bypass/flush valve is not funtioning then it is possible that all Ca/Mg captured on the resin can be released into the downstream house plumbing during regen and flushing. The total amount will be no greater that that which would have entered the system with the softener bypassed for the same time period. However, it would be present as a chloride, not a carbonate, and much less likely to precipitate on the elements unless you have really, really high levels of dissolved CO2 in your water.

Wow, that was a mouthful! I take it you're a softener tech? Or a chemist?



-Ryan