How to Clean a Propane Hot Water Heater

Should be a tap near the bottom looks like a garden hose connection. Annually attach a hose and drain fully.

Once it has started building, very hard to get rid of.

Water softening technology can help, salt bath prior to entering house "fills" excess holes in molocules to prevent ion action as well as preventing precipitation.

So water heater doesn't fill with crap, and pipes and fittings are not attacked by water.

Muriatic acid is commonly used to clean lime deposits away. May you could disconnect from propane and water supply and try to flush with a mild solution. Mix and then add carefully wearing protective eye-wear and gloves etc. let stand for half hour then flush, steady as it goes. What are your options? Buy another tank?

I have a tankless water heater and had some lime build-up problems so I installed boiler drains on the inlet and outlet lines, as well as isolation valves on each line so that they could be shut off and permit the boiler drains to be opened without the system being affected. Once a year I take a small electric transfer pump, get a 5-gallon bucket, pour in a gallon of white vinegar, put the pump in the bucket, connect the pump output to one of the boiler drains, run a drain hose from the other boiler drain to the bucket, then turn the pump on and let it run for an hour or so. Usually, the vinegar winds up being blue-green in color, which tells me that some good was done.

You could use a diluted Muriatic acid as well - it is much stronger than vinegar. Be careful not to get it on your concrete floor or any other calcium-based material. It will also effectively remove iron deposits from your system if you have any.

Performing this operation on a tank-type heater is a little more involved due to the typical piping configuration and the greater volume contained in the internal core, but it should work just as well. You could avoid one of the boiler drains if you utilize the one already on the tank, you will still have to be able to isolate the in and out lines to the tank to avoid running the acid through your entire system.

Be careful flushing out a storage hot water heater. Depending on what chemical you use you could compromise the sacrificial anode system. I cannot tell you what chemicals will do what to the anode, there are several different anode types in common use. Check with your water heater manufacturer for more details and possible help.

EPMiller

Be a swell time to replace the anode too.

This product does work to eliminate future lime deposits:

http://www.ridgeonsukstoreonline.co.uk/culligan-international-liff-wrappa-15-35mm-lw1-966-p.asp

Sometimes a truly trite answer is just the best answer.

The easiest way to clean anything is to pay somebody else to do it.

I have never tried this and have heard of a few people doing it, so I can't verify the effectiveness of it. I also don't know if there would be any ramifications from doing this. The few people told me to drain the water with the cold and hot line valves closed. Once empty, take a metal coat hanger and shove it in through the drain valve. Knock as much loose as possible and then, reattach hose and turn cold line on to flush out what you knocked loose with the metal coat hanger.

If you have a stainless tank, use vinegar or citric acid rather than muriatic as chlorides tend to attack lines of residual stress between grains in SS.

If you have a steel tank with an anode, remove anode and flush with hydrochloric, acetic (vinegar) or citric acids. Citric works well to remove rust also. Depending on the condition of the anode it may be worth replacing it at this time.

If a copper tank any of the acids, but never anything which contains ammonia.

One trouble in hard water areas is that calcium carbonate (and hydroxide I believe) is one of the few materials which is more soluble in cold water than hot, so it deposits preferentially on hot surfaces, usually where they are least accessible.

It may be worth looking at softening your water before it goes to the water heater to minimize future problems.

Good luck!

How about domestic kettle descalant?

Afterwards, if the water is not intended for drinking, then ion-exchange softening upstream might prove economic, as others above have suggested.