Water Heaters - Deposits or drywall?

Or something else?

I recently moved to a new apartment, and I'm having a rather interesting problem with the (electric) hot water. The hot water is often full of little white bits that are hard yet very brittle. They remind me of broken drywall. If I pinch them between my finger and fingernail, they're easily crushed into tiny bits.

I had called maintenance last Friday and they said that some drywall managed to get into the plumbing somehow when they were renovating the apartment. They ran the hot water for a while and said it was cleared out.

However, it wasn't. It was always worst in the first 5-10 seconds after turning on the hot water, then it seemed to run pretty clear. So I sat at the shower and cycled it on and off, partially clogging the shower head (and rinsing it out) over and over until the head stopped getting clogged. I figured it was mostly cleared out. Here's a video of one of the bad times:

http://www.facebook.com/v/67538776598

Here's what the shower head looks like when I take it off after it gets pretty clogged:

http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs027.snc1/3156_68919066598_637156598_2124391_6229117_n.jpg

But here I am, about four days and 12 showers later (not to mention several dishwasher runs) and I noticed the little white bits floating around in a bath I was drawing.

A friend noted that it might be some sort of buildup inside the tank itself. I did a bit of research and found that sediment and deposits do indeed collect and form in water heaters, but haven't found anyone describe a situation remotely like this.

I decided to drain a bit of water from the tank and see what it looked like. I turned the circuit breaker off, turned the cold water inlet off, and drained about 3-4 gallons into a bucket. I did not see any of the white 'bits' in the water.

I also noticed when drawing the bath that the smallish tub barely filled up halfway before the water got about room temperature - and it's a 40-gallon capacity tank. No idea if that's at all related.

Any ideas quite what's wrong? Could it be (lots of) drywall bits in the pipes that just hasn't cleared out yet? Is it tons and tons of deposits in the water heater itself?

Thanks for any info.

it looks and sounds like the dip tube has went bad. it was a common problem on all water heaters installed from like '92-'95 if i am not worng but it has been known to happen in other heaters as well. place the bits in vinegar, if they disentigrate then it is just hard waterr deposits, if they dont then it is the dip tube

it looks and sounds like the dip tube has went bad. it was a common problem on all water heaters installed from like '92-'95 if i am not worng but it has been known to happen in other heaters as well. place the bits in vinegar, if they disentigrate then it is just hard waterr deposits, if they dont then it is the dip tube

No vinegar, but I do have some CLR.

I sprayed a couple of small bits with 100% CLR and they don't seem to be dissolving.

They're solid white though. Wouldn't the dip tube be made of some metal?

OK, I just did some research and my water heater, serial number starting 0896, appears to be in the list of water heaters affected by the disintegrating plastic dip tube problem.

Sounds like I've found the problem. Time to see what maintenance does about it.

Thanks for the help!

the best thing to do is to remove the old heater, flush the water lines then install a new water heater. they will never get all the particles flushed out of the old heater

Just to update, they replaced the heater and flushed the lines after quite a bit of struggling. Thanks for the help, it was critical.

15 years later and I'm still replacing water heaters because of these problems.

This is where the class action lawsuit did not do enough.


Gave only a certain window to make claims...and it doesn't matter how many millions they spent to get the word out there, they should of notified every single person by purchase of a water heater that they had those problems.


Of course, that didn't happen.

If your maintenance people thought they got drywall into the water supply, I have to question what kind of monkeys they are!!!! Into a drain....clumsy and lazy. But into the water???