Monday, December 23, 2013, Water Heater Maintenance, Indio, CA


The water flow in the coach finally reached the point where something had to be done. Our guess (backed up by some quick web searching) was that hard water deposits were blocking the flow somewhere in the plumbing. A few web pages suggested we should fill all of the plumbing with vinegar to dissolve the built up minerals. It was not immediately apparent to me how that should be accomplished.  

First, we thought we should flush the hot water heater. I had purchased a flush wand at Camping World many months ago, and just like the spare fuel filters, I was waiting for a sign that would tell me to use it. The hot water appeared a bit milky at first and then I noticed the water felt a little sandy. I noticed there were chunks of precipitated minerals washing out of the heater tank.


Below the water heater, we saw the minerals were all over the drive. One guy stopped by and commented that he was always surprised how much sediment flushed out every time he cleaned his hot water heater. After all, was done, we easily collected a half cup of the sandy crud.  


We tried the faucet again, but there was no appreciable increase in the flow so we moved on to the next step and filled the plumbing with vinegar. We managed to put vinegar in the system, but I'm not sure exactly how we did it. The plumbing is quite a puzzle and most of it is somewhere it can't be seen, so trying to figure it out can be frustrating. We are supposed to leave the vinegar in the lines for as long as we can (Joani thinks two or three days, minimum) so it will be a while before we know if we have made a difference.

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