Vinegar Treatment

[K3WE]

We spent 12 months in an area with slightly hard water, and it seems like there’s a bit of gunk in all of our faucets and hot water tank.

I’m curious to hear from folks who do vinegar treatments- in particular if there’s tricks to clean the hot water tank and quantities and times.

I can imagine a couple of tricks to hit the water heater well, and then maybe rerun stuff through the cold side.

Beer discussion always welcome.

[Grit_dog]

If there’s loose crud in the water heater afterwards, you can tape a small hose to a shop vac and vac most of it out of the tank as well.

[K3WE]

nickthehunter wrote:


Clicky

That was interesting- no cautions on the vinegar, but it says bleach is dangerous.

I’m surprised to see that vinegar would be so tough on the anode rods, but chemistry is chemistry.

One note: the clicky is more about the sulfur bacteria & odors. Not really my issue, in spite of the overlap.

[JRscooby]

Off the wall idea.
My understanding is you are using vinegar to dissolve deposits from hard water in hot water tank right?
In school I learned that if water had less minerals in it would dissolve minerals in the container. I know it would not be as fast, but if you would fill the heater tank with distilled water, heated and cooled, stored camper between trips, would it clean the tank over time?
Much less trouble if don't get flushed out

[TurnThePage]

Be sure to rinse any and all areas surrounding the water heater after you drain it. The vinegar corroded the door hinges and other areas really bad.

I used the 25% vinegar solution for my system.

[CapnCampn]

Be careful using it as a soak in the HW tank - I did that one night and it ate most of my anode rod!

I don't think I diluted it enough before adding to the tank.

Good luck!

CC

[nickthehunter]

K3WE wrote:
We spent 12 months in an area with slightly hard water, and it seems like there’s a bit of gunk in all of our faucets and hot water tank.

I’m curious to hear from folks who do vinegar treatments- in particular if there’s tricks to clean the hot water tank and quantities and times.

I can imagine a couple of tricks to hit the water heater well, and then maybe rerun stuff through the cold side.

Beer discussion always welcome.

Clicky

[lucy6194]

Just used vinegar to get bathroom faucet in Winnebago nation to work. Had water everywhere but in this faucet. Filled plastic bag with vinegar tied it onto end of faucet and let it sit overnight. End with filter unscrewed easily next morning. Cleaned out the clogged filter good to go.

[Trackrig]

We used vinegar to clean ours when we got the MH. It seemed to do a good job. To do it right, when flushing you need one of those plastic wands with a 90 deg tip on the end to send the water to the ends of the tank so the **** gets flushed out.

Secondly - don't drain the vinegar out onto your grass..............

Third - we bought a two filter system, to use with the filter in the MH giving us three filters. Even in the southwest we don't have a problem calcium, or anything leaving spots on anything anymore. It uses a std sediment filter, a charcoal filter and at the moment I don't remember what the third filter is.

Bill