I bought a house a couple months ago and have been fighting water heater issues since day one. First it was the thermal overload. I figured that out and adjusted the thermostats. Then the breaker was tripping. Once we moved in and started using hot water more, the breaker started tripping less for whatever reason. Lately, it started tripping very frequently, and water stayed hot for way less time. So I decided it was time to truly investigate. I assumed it was a dead lower heating element.
I opened the breaker, closed the fill valve, and opened the drain. Once water stopped draining, I removed the wiring from the top element and removed it. Water came out.
WTF, this should be drained… I shoved it back in to plug the hole and investigated the drain. I got my oil pan out and straightened a wire hanger and shoved it in there, ready to catch whatever came out.
I was not prepared for this. So much goddamn scale. I don’t think this water heater has ever been flushed. I’m still hard at work, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve been working for hours to get this shit out. There was scale and brine sludge up to the lower element, which had corroded it apart. That’s like a foot of this shit.
New elements are in and wired up (I found a pack of two elements and two thermostats for only like $35) and I’m continuously filling and draining while alternating between using the wire hanger and a small pipe cleaner to fuck the drain hole.
I’ve never looked forward to a hot shower more than I do right now.
Edit:
My wife cooked a delicious steak, potatoes, and asparagus dinner, paired with a nice Cabernet Sauvignon. I took 400mg ibuprofen for my back and then enjoyed an aged, cold Mad Elf Ale in a hot shower. The breaker has not tripped. I’ll call this a success. I didn’t fully flush all the crap out because I ran out of time, but I’ll plan on doing a monthly flush until the chunks stop coming, and then I’m thinking a semiannual PM to flush it unless somebody recommends otherwise? I’m gonna also buy a new magnesium anode rod and replace the existing one within the year because it doesn’t look like this one has ever been replaced. Magnesium because I’m on a water softener and I plan to have all of the hardness out of the heater soon enough, so hardness shouldn’t be an issue.
140F is the golden standard for temperature setting on water heaters. Not sure why you think it needs to be set any higher for it to kill pathogens. Anyway a quick google search is all you need to educate yourself on this one.
The reason you don’t go higher than this is for safety reasons so you’re not burning yourself with hot water. With that said setting the temp a little higher won’t kill your water heater.
As for sediment this depends entirely on your water. Get it tested if you have to. Or get a whole house water filter. It could be you have a lot of sediment in your water source and you have to take protective maintenance to deal with it. Not everyone does this because not everyone has high sediment in their water. This isn’t great for your water heater but it won’t kill it in one year.
Sounds to me like you bought a shit water heater from a shit company and they don’t want to deal with it. Is there a warrenty?
???
Not sure why you’re telling me to “Google it”. I said that the heater was by default set to a very low temp, something like 120F, and the manual actually encouraged you to set it even lower.
I am the one who turned it up to 145F to kill pathogens after “googling it” and because the water had a bit of a smell to it at the time. I’m comfortable with the tech turning it down to 140F. Didn’t say that I wasn’t.
I’m just wondering if it’s still going to somehow break prematurely again because a 5 degree difference doesn’t seem that huge to me.
If setting the temp “too high” wasn’t what killed the water heater, then I’d like to know what did actually kill it so that I can help prevent it in the future.
The tech repaired it under warranty. I didn’t pay anything for them to fix it.
5F high isn’t significant, so idk why the attitude on the response you were given. It would overshoot from hysteresis at least that much between large refills.
As for why it failed, I would get a water test done and see how hard your supply is and if getting a softener is worthwhile. I’d also check the anode fairly frequently, but I’m with you, 1.5 years is not long enough to have worried about any of that. I’d say you had a poor element or that supplier just uses shitty elements to start with.