Water Heaters - Water heater boiling and squealing
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drhowarddrfine
12-17-06, 08:11 PM
I have a trailer in the country. We turn the electric water heater off because we might not be there for weeks/months. Now, when we arrive and turn it on, it may give a 'boiling' sound and squeal like crazy for the first day or two. I drained several gallons out of it and tried the pressure release. I don't recall if it was that or turning the water heat off overnight that stopped the noises.
After a full night of heating up, the hot water was only lukewarm and ran cold after just a few minutes. Letting it warm up a few hours more finally gave us hot water and everything seemed fine and the noise stopped.
My son went there this week and the same noise and cold water problem occured. The noise went away on the third day and he got lukewarm water, then hot, too.
The water heater is about 30 gallons and at least five years old and runs on well water that is fairly hard. What is going on and what should be done?
After a full night of heating up, the hot water was only lukewarm and ran cold after just a few minutes. Letting it warm up a few hours more finally gave us hot water and everything seemed fine and the noise stopped.
My son went there this week and the same noise and cold water problem occured. The noise went away on the third day and he got lukewarm water, then hot, too.
The water heater is about 30 gallons and at least five years old and runs on well water that is fairly hard. What is going on and what should be done?
GregH
12-17-06, 09:08 PM
The boiling sound will be from scale on the heating elements.
Water is being trapped between the element and scale and making noise while it boils out from under the minerals.
To fix this you would need to remove the elements and descale them with a descaler.
You might find that the elements will be very difficult to remove and the tank will have a lot of scale on the bottom.
There is a good chance it would be simpler to just replace the whole tank.
Water is being trapped between the element and scale and making noise while it boils out from under the minerals.
To fix this you would need to remove the elements and descale them with a descaler.
You might find that the elements will be very difficult to remove and the tank will have a lot of scale on the bottom.
There is a good chance it would be simpler to just replace the whole tank.