How do I clean a water heater?

[sagebel]

I got a 50 gallone water heater and there is some gunk in it. When I removed the upper element it crud all over it. What is the best way to clean the tank?

Scott

[girlmark]

Just take out all the plumbing (like the pipe nipples at the top) and stick a hose in it and flush, flush , flush . You definitely want to take off the plumbing at the bottom- the drain valve- so that the pieces of lime can come out. There's also a product called limeaway or something like that, which takes care of the white stuff. Its ' basically acetic acid or something. I Think I once filled it half full of water and added a little muriatic acid (hydrochloric) to help break up the crap.

Don't worry about it too much- you want to get the chunks out so they don't clog your plumbing or pump- but if there's a little white residue still coming out with the water it wont' get in the way of making biodiesel in that tank.

Lots of these basic water heater reactor questoins are already answered at www.veggieavenger.com/media equipment forum- take a look at the 'ask questions about appleseed reactor here' thread.

Good luck!
Mark

[Rex_Reimer]

Girl_Mark:

What are your thoughts on the kit on Ebay for this set-up, good, bad, rip-off, good-deal etc?

Thanks.

[greasyrob]

I built a vacuum-forming machine using a used hot water heater a couple years ago and although I didn't flush it with any chemicals, there appeared to be no end to the rust that the tank contained. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I used compressed air in there and there were rust flakes coming out forever. I ended up just putting a big beefy filter on the vacuum pump because I didn't think I'd ever get it cleaned out well enough. I definitely should've tried some kind of rust remover, but I guess my point is that there can be way more rust in there than you (i) would think. Maybe if it was just taken out of service very recently that wouldn't be a problem.

rob

[girlmark]

it's very rare to find rust in a used water heater- the only reason they rust is if the lining (a sort of enamel) has worn through . Usually they're thrown away long before this happens. usually what you do see is white lime scale stuff, which you can flush out or use some acid (muriatic poured into a lot of water in the heater) to break up the lime a little before flushing with water. You want to take out the bottom drain plastic thingie first as it'll keep the big chunks from coming out, and stick a garden hose in the top and flush away. Poke the chunks with a stick once in a while so they come out. A little bit of limescale wont' hurt your reaction and it'll probably get broken up further and then come out in the first few batches.

Mark

[sagebel]

I put some C.L.R. in w/ water and let it sit for about 30 minutes and then flushed it and blew it down w/ air. I had clear water as soon as the bubbles from the cleaner were flushed, no chunks.

Scott