My husband and I were recently faced with the job of cleaning our 30-gal. electric water heater. Soon after shutting off the electricity to the heater, we opened up the hose bib at the bottom of the tank. But once the tank stopped draining, we found that some residual water and an accumulation of mineral deposits remained in the tank. Once under similar conditions I had seen a plumber trying to scrape out the deposits with a soup spoon taped to a stick. I didn’t want to repeat that scenario.
We gave it some thought and went to the hardware store to see what we could devise. We purchased a 2-ft. length of 3/4-in. PVC pipe, a 1-1/2-in. by 3/4-in. bell reducer and a 3/4-in. threaded adapter. Back home, we heated the pipe and bent one end, as shown in the drawing. We then glued the pipe to the threaded adapter, screwed it into the bell reducer and affixed the affair to the end of our wet/dry vacuum with some duct tape. Now for the test.
We gained access to the inside of the tank by removing the bottom heating element. Then we poked the PVC pipe into the element hole, turned on the vac, and in seconds the mineral deposits were sucked away.
Donna LeFurgey and Caleb Smiley, El Prado, NM
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #84
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What harm do mineral deposits do on the bottom of a DHWH?
I believe this tip should should read 3/4" CPVC pipe, not PVC, since 3/4" PVC pipe will not fit through the drain valve opening. That opening is 3/4" pipe threads, which is smaller than the outside diameter of 3/4" PVC pipe; however 3/4" CPVC pipe will fit since it's OD is slightly smaller. The more you know!
They went through the element hole, not the drain hole.
I could see this as being more useful if a small enough pipe was used to allow it to go through the drain whole to be able to clean a gas water heater where the mineral accumulation will reduce the heat transfer making it less efficient. It would require a whole lot of mineral accumulation to be deep enough to reach the bottom element in an electric tank.