i agree. i was just adding some things to the topic. salt will help him
I’m on Schenectady City water. Surprised me how bad it was as well.
The element was definitely clogged causing to be defective. Tested the resistance and it was shorted on itself from the buildup.
I’m really hoping to avoid getting a softener installed. But its only been 4 years and it was that bad. I shop vac’ed the debris out of the bottom and will try keep it flushed out yearly.
hmm yea thats kind of strange for Schenectady… but im not too familiar with the water system
City water, there are no pumps.
No its not, I am on Schenectady water and it has very high levels of calcium, my dishwasher heater is white from the water as well as my once black carbon water filter in the refrigerator. After seeing this thread I will be draining my water heater this weekend.
I had trouble with the debris in the tank clogging up the drain on the bottom. I ended up unhooking the hose from the back of my washing machine and hooking it to the to drain on the water heater and flushing water back into the water heater to undo any clogs. Then unhooked the washing machine hose and let it drain until it clogged again. Repeated that a half dozen times until i could get all the water out without it clogging. I then vacuumed out that i could get at from the hole where the element goes. Then I opened the fill valve and kept the drain open to flush the tank out even more.
good to know im in colonie so i dont think im on that system but im gonna drain mine aswell and do some maintenance
heres a quick helpful step by step guide found
Honestly, this is a waste of time and energy. You’re in Colonie which isn’t known to have hard water.
You think so? I don’t think anything has been done to it in 5 years?
Your talking about saving pennies by doing that and after the fact you drain your tank down and then fill it up and the water heats back up in it, how much money do you really think you’ll be saving?
Hot water tanks are basically disposable items. You get anywhere from 10-15 years out of them and you replace them. If you’ve gotta tank with a thermocouple, you may want to change that every other year as a preventive maintenance but even then you’d want to consider replacing the tank because they stopped putting thermocouples in years ago.
mine is a fairly newer water heater so ill take your advice ill check if its got a thermocouple if not ill leave well enough alone