It takes my water heater about 20 minutes to heat the 6 gallons of water in the tank. So in theory it would take a couple of hours more to heat all of the water in the fresh water tank. Of course, that tank and the lines are not insulated so it is likely that at a certain point the water will cool faster than it can be heated. Next you might want to do some research. 130 degrees is way, way short of the temps that are needed to sanitize. The temp should be closer to boiling and needs to be held there for a while. Depending on the bacteria and viruses, the vinegar may or may not help. You also need to consider the water and slime build up in the supply lines to the fixtures. You would need to open them to get a good flow of scalding hot water and maintain that for a while.
Altogether this seems to be an exceedingly poorly thought out and poorly researched approach. I fail to understand the benefits or the difficulty of using dilute bleach. Nor do I understand how the vinegar taste is going to rinse out of the system faster or better than the bleach. In fact any remaining vinegar is going to remain indefinitely. Chlorine bleach even in a semi-sealed water system will slowly dissipate.
Which of the internet gurus are proposing this and what research did they do to determine the ability of warm vinegar to sanitize a water system? I would think twice before using some internet scheme that has not been thoroughly researched.
