Are all toilets this slow now?

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by bobbecky

If you do decide to install a check valve, you might also consider adding a small expansion tank between the check valve and the water heater. With the check valve installed, you will find water dripping from the water heater TP valve

Is there any reason not to put the expansion tank on the hot side of the heater? Asking because if I ever end up having to do it, it would be a lot easier to plumb. The cold lines are already pretty busy, and would be tougher to work on.

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by flybouy

To my thinking it's only logical if sediment, and the consensus agrees it's excessive sediment is an issue than the solution is to get rid of the sediment and do what you can to prevent it from recurring.

And my point is that while moving to an aluminum anode is worthwhile, it doesn't "get rid of" the sediment, it just reduces it. If my toilet continues to clog up, I'm going to get no satisfaction from knowing it's being clogged by the "right amount" of sediment. That's the nutshell. The sediment shouldn't be routing there.

[Kimmywatkins]

Seems to be a similar issue I am having. We have had no running water in our toilet for a week now(using buckets to poor after each use) but woke up this morning and there is no water in our kitchen now either.Help

[LHaven]

If you're having this problem, hot water should be free flowing even if your cold water is plugged.

Turn off the water pump and shore water feed. Bleed the residual pressure from your system by opening a hot water faucet somewhere, even your outdoor shower if the rest are all plugged. Using your fingers, unscrew the water feed into your toilet. I use a small soft plastic ear wax scoop to reach inside the toilet valve and scoop out the sediment, and an ear bulb irrigator to flush out what remains on the filter screen. If you are having the same problem I did, you will get about half a teaspoon of gray mud out of there. Screw it all back together, turn on your water feed, and test the toilet. Otherwise, you have some other issue.

If it does turn out to be your issue, you will have to figure out how to get the bathroom and kitchen faucets off to backflush them. I had to completely remove the bathroom faucet with a sink wrench to scoop out the cold valve. My kitchen filler was on a pull-hose, and could be easily unscrewed and flushed back in the house.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by Kimmywatkins

Seems to be a similar issue I am having. We have had no running water in our toilet for a week now(using buckets to poor after each use) but woke up this morning and there is no water in our kitchen now either.Help

Do you water flowing anywhere? Bathroom sink, shower? Where are you and what's the temperatures been like? We had a recent post where the OP was in a very cold area and the low point drains (which are abnormally protruding far below the coroplast) was freezing and affecting the kitchen faucet only.

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by flybouy

If you want to check the water before connecting you can purchase a TDS meter for under $20. TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids and will give you an indication on water hardness.

Well, I just got schooled by my softener manufacturer on more than I ever wanted to know about water hardness.

After Santa brought me this meter, I called them to complain that my softener wasn't working, because meter readings inside showed a reduction of not even 5% from the 254ppm outside.

She told me that while these meters are accurate, what they show is not hardness. TDS is made up of a lot of stuff, only a portion of which are the chemicals that make water hard, and the rest of it is minerals that standard water softeners just don't address. They can produce perfectly "soft" water and yet leave the vast majority of those other minerals in the water. She said the only accurate consumer hardness test involves paper strips, which she is sending me.

Chemically, the consumption of an anode is accelerated by all components of total solids (which is also how they show up on the electronic meter). Since typical softeners remove some components but introduce a small level of salt into the water, they can either aggravate or reduce the anode consumption. So adding a softener to my RV isn't a good solution to my heater sediment problem.

She also told me that given that I was running on well-water, my home softener should most probably have been set to 30 or 35 instead of the 11 that the installing plumber told me was optimum for my water. I've been running various cleanings and regenerations since, and awaiting the strips so I can get to the bottom of it all.

Finally, all of this folderol reminded me to flush and change out the anode rods in our two residential water heaters, both about 10 years old, only the smaller one of which was comfortably consumed (but I replaced them both anyway).

Meanwhile, I have a new aluminum anode installed in the Cougar, and will see how it fares by the end of 2020... provided I don't get tired well before that of scooping sediment out of my toilet intake once we begin traveling this summer.

[LHaven]

I realize I never wrote the last chapter to this mystery novel.

The paper strips showed my well water had zero hardness(!)... even from the faucet at the well itself. But boatloads of dissolved solids of other types. So all this time, my home water softener has been doing bupkis. My fixtures still crystallize, but apparently the crystals are exotic.

I switched to the aluminum anodes. Anode consumption and sediment generation went way down.

I cleaned the toilet intake screen one final time (of hopefully the leftover sediment in the lines from the old anodes), and so far the toilet flow hasn't clogged up since. There's still a significant startup delay, which I could probably remedy by backflushing the screen instead of scooping it out, but I don't want to poke the bear until I absolutely need to (I tried taking this valve out before, failed, and don't want to force it and break it).

I'm shopping whole-house RO systems for the residence for when the current softener bites the dust. RO systems for the trailer are outside the solution set.

[LHaven]

Since my mobile tech added check valves to my water heater a few weeks ago, my toilet intake screen no longer clogs up with anode sediment and works so much better! DW is especially happy. I plan to go back to the magnesium anode next swapout.

There does seem to have been an interesting side-effect, though. Now, when I turn my shower head to "dribble mode" to soap up, the dribble turns ice cold. When I turn it back to flow, it regains the preset temperature quickly enough. I'm pretty confident it's related to the check valve installation, but I can't quite work out the mechanism.

I have to say I've never gotten a convincing explanation of why spray heads that used to have true "shut off valves" 25 years ago all have "dribble valves" now, so I may just install an aftermarket shutoff valve on the showerhead hose and call it solved.

[LHaven]

More closure. (Documenting a problem may keep someone else from experiencing it.)

Got a credible explanation of why adding a check valve to my water heater made the shower dribble "feature" dribble ice cold: the check valve needs a minimum flow in order to open, and the dribble is too slow, so all you get is the cold side.

Also finally got a credible explanation of why RV shower heads now dribble instead of shut off like in my older rig. It's a code thing, justified by avoiding the possibility of the hot water looping around your faucet valves into the cold side, then coming out "hot + hot" when you reopen the shower head, possibly scalding you or a kid. However:

• RV water heaters (and home WHs for that matter) are supposed to be set to non-scalding temperatures in the first place. I don't need both belt and suspenders.
• If you have a check valve on your water heater (I just added a set but YMMV), the hot water flow will stop when the showerhead valve is shut off (minimum flow, above) and incidentally it will also keep the cold water from looping into the hot side just by being closed. In general, adding check valves in the WH reduces the relative pressure of hot to cold in the first place.

So I bought a true "no dribble" in-line valve [LINK], installed it atop my faucets, and test-drove it. True bliss! The temperature is 100% consistent (no more ice cold restarts) and the "on" flow isn't noticeably restricted.

[hlh1]

Thanks for this! I just ordered one of these to solve the same problem you've been having.