Water heater info

[stiles watson]

This is what I was told by the dealer service manager. As a full timer, to keep my water heater in good shape, I need to drain and flush it every month or two. It had been 10 months since I last did this little job. The anode was covered with a slimy gooey like deposit and there was a significant amount of mineral granules in the tank. A good cleaning of the anode revealed about a third of it was used up. A pressure nozzle on my hose sufficiently stirred the granules in the tank to clean it out.

I use a two filter system. The first filter is a .5 micron sediment filter and the second is filter to take out heavy metals and cysts. Still, enough mineral deposits came through the filtering system leave significant amounts of mineral deposits.

[ols1932]

Stiles,
I've only cleaned ours when I change the anode rod. Never have had a problem. Dealers are all different. My dealer for the past 30+ years doesn't seem to feel this is a big deal as long as we change the anode and flush the heater out regularly. In our case, if you recall my posts back in April - May, 2008 I had a difficult time getting my anode out until someone made me a tool. We flushed the tank and though there was still a little life left in the old anode, we put a new one in.

Orv

[exav8tr]

I've had my 3400 for two years and fulltime. I have changed my anode once and flushed the tank once, probably due again but I think annually is enough. We also use the dual jumbo filter system from RV Water Filter. My rod was barely used after one year.....I don't know if where you camp makes much difference but I have heard it does.
Any comments?????

[Longwell]

Good info to have, something to watch and something to learn from the experience of you others.
Thanks.
Larry

[ols1932]

quote:Originally posted by exav8tr

I've had my 3400 for two years and fulltime. I have changed my anode once and flushed the tank once, probably due again but I think annually is enough. We also use the dual jumbo filter system from RV Water Filter. My rod was barely used after one year.....I don't know if where you camp makes much difference but I have heard it does.
Any comments?????

Yes, where you are hooked up makes a difference> In some water sources there are more of the contaminants in the water than in other places. You can be connected in one part of the country and have hardly anything affect the anode rod and in other parts of the country the rod will be eaten up very rapidly. That's why some people check it every time they get home from a trip. As a full timer, I check ours once a year and usually (note I said "usually") replace it then.

Orv

[skypilot]

Your filters are catching the larger contaminants in the water -- sand, dirt, possibly iron, magnesium, etc. However, some are smaller and get by. I don't think that is an issue though. The anode rod is designed to take mineral materials in the water that would attack the metal of the hot water heater and sacrifices itself by the chemicals attacking it instead. As the rod is 'eaten up', it dissolves and most of the granuales you flushed out were the spend rod / other previously dissolved minerals now joined together. It is an electrolosis type action - that is why the the anode rod plug can not be insulated from the tank itself (if you put too much teflon tape on and the plug can not actually make contact with the tank, the anode rod doesn't work.)

As Orv said, the water quality varies greatly from place to place. Our well water would eat an anode rod up in a single summer season; since we've gone to city water, an anode rod will last two, perhaps three seasons without having to be replaced. However, we do drain the tank if we are not going to use the 5th wheel for several weeks -- just to have fresher water available when we do use it again.