Cleaning the H/W tank

[Steve S]

I watched this on another site and thought that it was pretty interesting and thought that I would share this.:)
Does anyone clean their H/W tanks this way? I was kind of wondering if the water would taste like vinegar for a few weeks after the process is done. :ermm:
https://youtu.be/TL7AtXJYNcc

[notanlines]

I'm curious how people clean their water heaters at home.....

[sourdough]

I'm curious how people clean their water heaters at home.....


^^^What he said. I drain my RV water heater 1-2 times a year. I don't do that at home so I'm thinking the RV is OK............

[bsmith0404]

We don't drink the water in our RV anyway, it's used for washing up and the toilet. The closest we get to drinking is brushing our teeth, but that's on the clod side. As for this method leaving a vinegar taste, if you flush it with water a couple times I doubt it would be a problem. Not really any different than cleaning a coffee maker.

[Rex1vt]

I recently checked and flushed the water heater of our 2014 and the anode really needed to be changed to protect the heater.

[concours]

Looks like overkill to me. I filter our water going in with a 5 micron pre plus a carbon filter also flush the tank twice a year never a problem. Note we live in our trailer for 6 months of the year. I get 1.5 years from the anode. I guess a lot depends on water source but Hemet CA isn't renowned for it's water quality.

[Steve S]

K but have any of you actually looked into the tank to see what's really going on? I really don't like the "Guessing" that it's fine I'd like to hear if anyone else has done it this way and what their results were.:dance::party:

[Drydays]

K but have any of you actually looked into the tank to see what's really going on? I really don't like the "Guessing" that it's fine I'd like to hear if anyone else has done it this way and what their results were.:dance::party:

I have cleaned mine once a year , for several years. Even with filters, most all places ,,water is different, minerals and chemicals make a lot of changes in the tanks.
Mine has always had an aluminum tank and NO anode rod, (lucky there?) Any way . The buildup inside a tank can do a lot of damage to the tank and on Anode rods it can destroy one sooner than most think.
I use a 5 gallon bucket for the first flush to see the gunk.. Oh and if you do this on a paved or concrete surface you my want to bucket all the drainage. It sometimes gets to be a mess.
Good luck and keep your water clean, you never know when the hose stuff breaks down. I always keep at least 20 gallons in my fresh tank and drain it when I get home..
:popcorn:

[Drydays]

I'm curious how people clean their water heaters at home.....

At home? bricks and sticks? Yep, do that, connect a hose at the bottom of the tank. MAKE SURE IT HAS BEEN SHUT OFF FOR A WHOLE 24 HOURS or run out the hot water first.

Shut off your water main, open all your hot water facents and , open the valve to drain the tank. let it run out. Then shut off all the facents and turn on the out side water again. let run till clean.

[mfifield01]

Do you actually see that much stuff come out? I drain mine to winterize, but don't see much come out. Maybe I should run water through it.

[notanlines]

Drydays, I was kind of making a little funny here, but do you actually take the time to drain and rinse your water heater at home? Can you tell us where that came from? I simply cannot fathom anyone with enough time (and the urge) to put draining and rinsing the water heater on my list of maintenance items at home. Might I ask how you benefit by this.....

[Steve S]

I have cleaned mine once a year , for several years. Even with filters, most all places ,,water is different, minerals and chemicals make a lot of changes in the tanks.
Mine has always had an aluminum tank and NO anode rod, (lucky there?) Any way . The buildup inside a tank can do a lot of damage to the tank and on Anode rods it can destroy one sooner than most think.
I use a 5 gallon bucket for the first flush to see the gunk.. Oh and if you do this on a paved or concrete surface you my want to bucket all the drainage. It sometimes gets to be a mess.
Good luck and keep your water clean, you never know when the hose stuff breaks down. I always keep at least 20 gallons in my fresh tank and drain it when I get home..
:popcorn:

Yeah it's the build up that you can't see that I'm a little concerned about. I go through 2 rods a yr as there's places where you can smell how bad the water is. I'm thinking about gettine one of those scopes if I can find one.

[Drydays]

At the sticks and bricks, had sand and dirty ssssttt,,,,,,,,,uff come out, the toilet was getting ring around the collar, called the water dept, said ,oh that is normal. Ha nice clean Oregon water. But did get it cleaned out.
In the trailer the first time A whole bunch of white gooey stuff came out, and the last couple of time has bee fairly clean. We travel from AK to TX to NC and other spots, so all kinds of water is getting filtered in to the hot water tank.
It won't hurt to clean it out once in a while.

[Drydays]

I just do, but I am kinda nutty that way , I like to take care of things,

[Harleydodge]

I'm gonna resurrect this thread and add some pics for anyone interested.

Today I flushed out the HWT on our Raptor.
It is a 2013 that we just bought used this spring.
On our first trip with it, we noticed that the water, particularly the hot water, had a terrible chemically odor to it and was very yellow in color.
No matter how long I ran the water, I could not seem to flush it out properly.

After looking into it further, I noticed the plug/anode rod in the bottom of the tank and decided to pull it and drain the the tank that way.
Glad I did, as once I extracted the plug, and amazing amount of built-up crud/scale came out.
The rod itself was covered in an oily/tarry/sticky substance that I can only assume was old antifreeze that had been heated in the tank.
I can't say this wasn't entirely my fault, as this is our first RV and I guess I should have known to flush the system completely before we used it, but hey, how else am I supposed to learn this stuff?? :)

Anyway, I proceeded to fill the tank again and repeat the process of draining it.
After 3 times and still getting "crud" coming out the tank, I decided to fill it again and while it was draining I used the air hose fitting shown to help "stir up and evict the crud". This seemed to work well, and after bleeding out all the lines in the trailer, I now seem to have gotten rid of the smell/odor/color.

We will still likely only use the on board water system for showering and washing dishes and whatever, but not for drinking. We prefer to use a 5 gallon water jug and pump for drinking/coffee/cooking water.

I now have a better understanding of how I will likely winterize the unit as a result and now know to flush the HWT before using it each season.

[Ken / Claudia]

Spend a few bucks and change the rod every year. I do drain the house HW and the RVs but, not ever flushed them. I do not drink any of the hot water so not sure if I need to flush them or not. I have filter on the sink and like others clean dishes with hot water But, you guys be very careful about vinegar. If you drink some make sure a toilet is close by and you will need it for awhile.

[Johnny's Journey]

I'm gonna resurrect this thread and add some pics for anyone interested.

Today I flushed out the HWT on our Raptor.
It is a 2013 that we just bought used this spring.
On our first trip with it, we noticed that the water, particularly the hot water, had a terrible chemically odor to it and was very yellow in color.
No matter how long I ran the water, I could not seem to flush it out properly.By the looks of it you have an aluminum rather than magnesium rod in what also looks like a Suburban unit. Magnesium is what Suburbans come with from the factor and does a better job and less smell.

[Harleydodge]

By the looks of it you have an aluminum rather than magnesium rod in what also looks like a Suburban unit. Magnesium is what Suburbans come with from the factor and does a better job and less smell.

Hmm. Interesting. Thank-you for that. Perhaps I will look further into it.
The rod itself did not appear to have any corrosion whatsoever on it, so it may well have been replaced at some point.
It IS a Suburban unit for sure by the way.