Flushing a water heater

[petek]

All I do is put a bucket under the water heaters flush tap and let it fill up and dump it down the toilet,, once a year.. I don't go shutting things off. Other than that nothing.. we rent our water heater from the gas company and get 24/7 repair or replacement for about $15 a month and peace of mind. My first ever "leak" was what about 2 months ago.. the safety valve up top blew..thank g I came home soon after it happened so there wasn't too much water on the floor

 

[polkanut]

I've been very fortunate over the last 11yrs with our Ruud natural gas water heater w/ power vent. When I flush ours, next to nothing comes out in the way of sediment. When I do the flush, all I do is unplug it, turn off the gas, and go to work.

 

[westingman123]

timely subject drift

I just had the WH at the farm replaced with a tankless Rinnai. I cannot tell you how much better this is! My Aunt and Unc who lived on the farm the last 30 years had a tiny electric WH as a backup to their outdoor furnace. When Unc got too frail to maintain the wood-burning furnace they relied upon this little thing, and replaced element after element. Tankless is AWESOME. As long as you have gas, you have hot water. Period. It does require a flush with vinegar once a year, but I find that to be a small price to pay. Oh, and there's a tax rebate this year, as well.

 

[stevet]

Better stock up on that vinegar!

Keith, those tankless heaters do work well in many, many applications but if your parents were eating thru elements in the previous heater, then they either have something very corrosive in their water or if they have very hard water with high lime levels, then the heat exchanger of that Rinnai will probably clog up alot faster than once a year and would possibly suffer premature failure due to the excessive lime.

I would suggest a water quality test be done on the hardness of the water and contact Rinnai, not the installer and ask them what their recommendations are to insure long life for the unit. You may only have to do it 3 or 4 times a year and it is not that difficult anyway.

I know a few customers here in the Orlando area who have had premature failure of the heat exchangers due to excessive lime buildup which was not covered by the manufacturers.

Some manufacturers recommend using a scale blocking cartridge which will help keep the lime in suspension and help it from forming hard deposits inside tanks, piping and exchangers.
That can be an option too.

 

[panthera]

The manufactuere

of my on-demand water heater here in Germany suggests the following to reduce lime and scale build-up. Coincidentally, this also saves a fair amount of money/energy. The suggestions apply to both electric and gas units.

1) Don't heat the water any warmer than necessary to use it without mixing it with cold water to temper it. This seems perfectly logical once you think of it, but I didn't at first.
2) After use, turn the hot water tap on again for a few seconds, just enough to have a very small stream of water. This small stream won't turn on the heat (hydraulic pressure switch) and let it run until the water feel cooler. This will flush an enormous amount of freshly deposited sediment out of the system and off elements/interchangers, etc.
3) Check the system for build-up every three months. If the scale buildup is too fast, install a de-ionizer.

Makes sense to me, especially #1.

 

[westingman123]

Good information!

I'll put it to use. The well water is, well, HARD. Tastes great, but not good on any appliance that uses it. I'm dashing off an e-mail to Rinnai, perhaps I should look into a softener. Meantime, I'll follow the other tips. As always, I thank you all for the advice.