View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
Ashton Crusher[_2_] Ashton Crusher[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,378
Default Electric water heater crud build up verus temperature

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:58:23 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:01:12 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

Ashton Crusher wrote:
I've noticed that setting my electric water heater on "really hot"
seems to cause a lot of crud build up. On "normal" or a little lower
it doesn't seem to build up nearly as much crud. This seems backwards
to me. Hotter water should be able to hold more dissolved stuff so
why does more of the dissolved minerals seem to come out at higher
temps??
Hmmm,
Do you ever flush the tank?


Hardly ever. But with the hot setting I flushed it when it was about
18 months old and it was jammed with crud. Did it again about a year
later when the lower element burned out and it was full of crud up to
the element. Set the temp lower and haven't flushed it since (at
least 4 years) and since the element has not burned out again I'm
assuming it's not buried in crud this time.

Hi,
Is your water hard?
What is set temp. on the thermostat?


Yes, we have pretty darn hard water. Setting is just below "normal",
probably about 130 degrees.