Water Heater Gas, Water Softeners, and Salt

[gippc]

Will the salt in water softener units shorten the life of the hot water heater tank. If so how can you tell if salt did the damage?

[majakdragon]

gippc, Welcome to the DIY Forums.
I do not believe that salt shortens the life of water heaters. The inside of the tank is lined. The biggest problems are build-up of minerals (calcium etc). Thats why you should drain and flush your heater at least once a year. With a gas heater, once the deposits start building up on the bottom of the tank, you will start hearing a crackling sound when the heater kicks on. This is the deposits "boiling" on the bottom of the tank. This makes the burner work longer and harder to heat the water. Preventive Maintenance is always the best deterent for future problems. Good luck.

[Gary Slusser]

Actually softened water doesn't contain "salt". It contains sodium from the softening process and then any sodium in the raw (unsoftened) water. The second part of "salt", chloride is not increased from what is found in the raw water.

The primary cause of failure of the tank in any water heater is the lining be damaged allowing the steel to be in contact with the water. Bare steel will rust overnight simply due to a finger print or humidity iin the air. A serious cause oof lining failure is the popping sound of water turning to steam and exploding under hard water scale caused by hard water. So needing the softener and not having one fails the heater sooner than not and having a soften prevents premature heater faliures by keeping the scale form forming. The softened water will also dissolve built up scale if hard water was run though the heater prior to installing a softner. So if your're looking for someone to tag as responsible, check out the times the softener was allowed to run out of salt. ;)

Of course that all assumes no one put the heater in the softener's salt tank; there is "salt" in them. :D

Gary
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