Hot water heater help...

vanbells said:

Ok, so my well lived it's life and collapsed about 4 weeks ago. By middle of this week, Calvert Well finished drilling 517 feet, dropped a new pump, and installed a bigger pressure tank. Now, my problem is that my hot water heater has some sand or sediment at the bottom below the drain valve and I can't empty it.

-Should I keep emptying water through the water, hoping that majority of the sediment will stir and exit the tank?

-Is this something that could be serviced or should it be replaced?

Any help would for this new home owner would be greatly appreciated.
-Stephen

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vanbells said:

Ok, so my well lived it's life and collapsed about 4 weeks ago. By middle of this week, Calvert Well finished drilling 517 feet, dropped a new pump, and installed a bigger pressure tank. Now, my problem is that my hot water heater has some sand or sediment at the bottom below the drain valve and I can't empty it.

-Should I keep emptying water through the water, hoping that majority of the sediment will stir and exit the tank?

-Is this something that could be serviced or should it be replaced?

Any help would for this new home owner would be greatly appreciated.
-Stephen

Click to expand...

Suz' said:

It's sediment from your water. In our old house we had hard water-it was awful leaving stains, calcium deposits in sinks, commodes etc. We nearly eliminated that problem by installing 2 Omni whole house water filters (lowes)-one for sediment and the other for taste/odor on the incoming water line. This was done when we lost HOT water a few months after we moved in. The hot water heater had 2 coils in it. One at the top and one in the bottom. The bottom one was buried in sediment and burnt itself out trying to keep up. We were lucky in that, where the coils were located we could remove and replace them. It's possible that yours is the same. Drain the tank first of course. While hubby was doing this he was able to scoop the sentiment out.

If you decide to do the water filters I have to add that our water was so bad we had to change the filters out every 4-6 weeks-their not cheap-but it was well worth it.

Hope this helps.

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Suz' said:

It's sediment from your water. In our old house we had hard water-it was awful leaving stains, calcium deposits in sinks, commodes etc. We nearly eliminated that problem by installing 2 Omni whole house water filters (lowes)-one for sediment and the other for taste/odor on the incoming water line. This was done when we lost HOT water a few months after we moved in. The hot water heater had 2 coils in it. One at the top and one in the bottom. The bottom one was buried in sediment and burnt itself out trying to keep up. We were lucky in that, where the coils were located we could remove and replace them. It's possible that yours is the same. Drain the tank first of course. While hubby was doing this he was able to scoop the sentiment out.

If you decide to do the water filters I have to add that our water was so bad we had to change the filters out every 4-6 weeks-their not cheap-but it was well worth it.
I had the same problem with hard water and put a water softener inline with the water heater input. No more calcium build up at all. I think what "vanbells" is saying, though, is that when her well collapsed actual sand got into her water tank. (She probably hasn't even thought about the pressure tank yet). I had a similar problem when the output pipe down the well sprung a leak.

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vanbells said:

Ok, so my well lived it's life and collapsed about 4 weeks ago. By middle of this week, Calvert Well finished drilling 517 feet, dropped a new pump, and installed a bigger pressure tank. Now, my problem is that my hot water heater has some sand or sediment at the bottom below the drain valve and I can't empty it.

-Should I keep emptying water through the water, hoping that majority of the sediment will stir and exit the tank?

-Is this something that could be serviced or should it be replaced?

Any help would for this new home owner would be greatly appreciated.
-Stephen

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DoWhat said:

Can't you read?
He said he has sand in his hot water heater.

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desertrat said:

Oops, sorry vanbells. I just noticed for some reason I kept refering to you as she or her. My apologees.
One more thing. You probably have sediment throughout your water system. It'll flush out over time, but you might want to drop a tab or two of bleach down your well, let it sit for a while and then run all your faucets till you smell it. Then run your hose out side to flush it out. Like DW implies, if your WH is getting old, it wouldn't hurt to replace it.

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desertrat said:

When I got sediment in mine I made an adaptor for my shop vac to fit in the hole in the bottom of the tank and sucked it out. PVC and I think I used a bent piece of copper tubing I had laying around. Did the well co. run chlorine or anything through the house plumbing?

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DoWhat said:

How old is the water heater?

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CMC122 said:

Bleaching the well is a requirement by the health department And was most likely done by the well company.

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