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drillagent's avatar
drillagent
Explorer
Nov 03, 2014

Hard Water Deposits in Water Heater

When I pulled the anode tube out of the water heater to winterize it, I noticed a lot of lime/hard water deposits around the opening inside the tank.

How do you clean the inside of the water heater tank? Is it ok to use CLR? How do you get it in the tank?

Thanks.
  • Do any of them understand the process of softening and breaking up of mineral deposits by turning them to salts? I think not. If they did, they would understand the need for low Ph to be followed by high ph. Friend here who has an appliance store ran (get this) eight flushes of vinegar through a Braun coffeemaker to stop the error-clogged message on the LCD screen. I brought the materials. Ran one flush, the baking soda flush effluent was horrid-looking. Refilled with fresh water, and cycled a pot of hot water 30% faster and the error signal vanished. Unconfusion 101
  • Strange.......

    Suburban doesn't address that issue in their manuals, Atwood does.
    Atwood has procedure for deposits (vinegar soak 4 gallons white vinegar to 2 gallons water for 6 gallon tank) and a procedure for sulfur odor.

    Suburban only addresses sulfur odor issue.
  • I drain my tank.
    Use one gallon of white grain vinegar, and fill tank with service water.
    Button it up,
    Fire up heater on highest thermostat setting
    Let it go 24 hours
    Drain
    Mix one pound of baking soda with gallon of hot water
    Fill tank with service water
    Light it off in highest temp setting
    Wait six hours
    Then drain an incredible amount of built up magnesium and calcium deposits
    Flush with service water. Drain heater
    Then run about 3-4 gallons of white tank water through kitchen sink
    Vinegar and baking soda are safer and work just as well as dangerous acids and neutralizers.

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