Flushing tankless water heater w/ vinegar

H20Man · Jan 14, 2008

Where do you get a 5 gal bucket of vinegar? Sams club or something?

What about a good inexpensive pump to use for the flush? Do you just rig out some vinyl hose or whatever to the pump? I don't guess anybody sells a ready-to-go setup do they?

TMB9862 · Jan 14, 2008

H20Man said:
Where do you get a 5 gal bucket of vinegar?

Five 1 gallon containers at the food store plus an empty five gallon bucket. Or a membership to a restaurant supply center.

Sponsor · 2022-01-29T12:20:58-0800

H20Man · Jan 14, 2008

What about the pump and hoses? Just rig something up from parts from Lowe's/HomerDepot? Most pumps you see there are like effluent pumps and are quite expensive....
Any suggestions?

Gary Slusser · Jan 14, 2008

If you have hardness scale in a water heater, you need a water softener. It will prevent more build up of scale and dissolve the scale build up in the tank.

That's much better than attempting to use vinegar and then when done ot have more scale form because of hard water, and have to dod the vinegar thing every so often.

I suggest a correctly sized softener for the family size, water quality and the SFR required by the house. It should have a Clack WS-1 control valve.

Bob NH · Jan 14, 2008

H20Man said:
What about the pump and hoses? Just rig something up from parts from Lowe's/HomerDepot? Most pumps you see there are like effluent pumps and are quite expensive....
Any suggestions?

The small rubber-impeller "drill pumps" will circulate the vinegar. There is no significant pressure loss at the flows you will be using. They usually have threaded connections for standard hoses and washing machine hoses will work.

SRdenny · Jan 14, 2008

Something like this:
http://www.zoeller.com/zcopump/products/sumpeff/310_311.htm
with 2 short hoses and a bucket of vinegar.

Master Plumber Mark · Jan 14, 2008

a rash of flushing questions....

this is the second or third person
to inquire on how to de-lime their tankless
water heaters....over the past month....

the last guy with a totally clogged up heat exchanger never has posted wether he was
successful or not in freeing up his exchanger.

maked me wonder if he ever did succeed

I wonder if this is going to be a bigger problem for
people with hard water than they realize.....

H20Man · Jan 15, 2008

There's nothing wrong with mine. I'm just doing it for preventative reasons like the manual suggests.

master plumber mark said:
this is the second or third person
to inquire on how to de-lime their tankless
water heaters....over the past month....

the last guy with a totally clogged up heat exchanger never has posted wether he was
successful or not in freeing up his exchanger.

maked me wonder if he ever did succeed

I wonder if this is going to be a bigger problem for
people with hard water than they realize.....

Flushing tankless water heater w/ vinegar

H20Man

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Gary Slusser

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