I dont run a water softener, so I burn up water heaters in just a few years verses the standard 6-to 10 years.
I can buy a 40 gallon electric for a couple hundred bucks. I can tell mine is getting full of Lime again and I thought about replacing it before winter sets in full force since it's actually in the crawl space under the house.
I just looked up the prices of them for this year. ALMOST $600 BUCKS :shock2: :waiting: :sick2:
Holy ballz!!
cant you just clean it?
It is probably sitting on a ship on the west coast. :innocentwhistle:
Ouch!
What does lime do in the system? I have cleaned out calcium from a hot water tank. No idea if below is useful to you but FWIW.
We used to live where calcium would build up on the heating element till it got about 3/16" thick and would crack off and fall to the bottom of the hot water tank. When those chunks built up to the outlet level it clogged the hot water pipes with calcium gravel throughout the house. I filled the hot water pipes with extra strength 7% acid vinegar, let it set 24 hours and it dissolved the calcium till it could be flushed out.
Then I pulled the heating elements from the hot water tank and fashioned a long skinny "spoon" to scoop out the gravel from the tank. Got most of it.
Then I plumbed an upside down goose neck outlet pipe that went up to above tank level, then back down and out the normal hot water pipe running away from the tank. That way the calcium gravel would have to go straight up about 4 feet to get over the top of the goose neck and into the hot water outlet system. None ever made it.
Plus, about once a year after that I would pull the heating element and spoon out gravel build up.
Take cold showers like a real man :innocentwhistle:
Yah the lime builds up to the level of the element and then the element shorts out and arcs it's self in half. I used to drain the water heater and scoop as much lime as I possibly could through the 1 1/4 inch element hole and replace the element.
If you've ever done that, you already know what a crippling tedious job that is. There's roughly enough lime to fill a 1 gallon ice cream pail by the time its gets to the element, and the only things that fit through the element hole to allow scooping and cleaning is smaller then a spoon. A spoon will not fit. So whatever you can manufacture to stick in the hole and drag lime back out with, allows you to get approx a teaspoon at a time. AND that is only productive until you get a half inch below the actual opening your raking it out of, because after that you not going to get any lime up to the hole to come out with each drag of your tool. :doh2: It flat out sucks.
My house dont really have a basement. It's more of a cellar, outside access with and it's not full height. So draining the water heater is usually a sloppy muddy mess with only partial concrete down there. And siphoning the tank dry itself is usually a 2 or 3 hour job.
I'm not paying $600 bucks for a water heater though.
I dont know if a drill pump will pump water through 40 feet of garden hose and up and out of the cellar or not but I'm going to buy one and try. :shrug:
Well the drill pump work like a charm!
O'Reilly's Auto had one for $9 but the reviews sucked, said it leaked all over the place half of them didn't work. I found a $15 one.. Wells brand, at Ace hardware and it never dripped a drop. It pumped the 40 gallons out in about 30 minutes and up the cellar steps. I was pretty impressed.
Then I concocted a gizmo for my shop vac to stick in the element hole and suck out the lime gravel. I took the bulb off a turkey baster and then heated that end up so I could stretch it over the nozzle of my shop vac. Then I cut the pointy tip off the baster to about a half inch diameter. Then I was able to slide a piece of half inch conduit in through that end to extend it all.
That worked so good. It allowed me to dredge approximately 10 lbs of lime out if that thing.
I might start a side business recovering water heaters [emoji23]
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/v54/RiverBoy/20211205_135657.jpg)
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/v54/RiverBoy/20211205_135747.jpg)
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Ingenuity at it's finest. :yoyo: :yoyo:
Way to go Mr. Fixit. If you go door-to-door cleaning lime you will have enough to lime your yard in the spring. Just saying - you might not want to. :biggrin:
:highclap:
Impressive. ingenius and creative. Bravo!
Ditto to all the misery of spooning gravel out, etc. You made a quantum leap forward. Kind of wonder why they don't put a clean out port near the bottom of the tank.
Wowzer! That Jimbo is like a younger version of Red Green!
Quote from: Okanagan on December 05, 2021, 11:09:28 PM
:highclap:
Kind of wonder why they don't put a clean out port near the bottom of the tank.
Pretty simple - they would not be able to sell as many replacement water heaters. I believe that it is referred to as 'built in obsolescence'.
Quote from: Hawks Feather on December 05, 2021, 08:21:20 PM
Way to go Mr. Fixit. If you go door-to-door cleaning lime you will have enough to lime your yard in the spring. Just saying - you might not want to. [emoji3]
Lime is good for the grass? If it is I definitely don't want to do that lol. I'd rather put round up on it so I didn't have to mow it so much [emoji23]
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Really? It looks like you have a nice Troy Built mower.
Quote from: Hawks Feather on December 06, 2021, 02:30:27 PM
Really? It looks like you have a nice Troy Built mower.
I do have a nice Troy-Built mower, lol. Almost brand new but I still hate mowing the grass. I actually bought that for pulling the wood splitter around out here. But you'd think I'd like mowing the yard with it since it's new. Everybody at work says the same thing. You got a brand new mower how come you hate mowing? I just hate taking the time out of my life to do it there's so many other things I'd rather been doing then driving around in circles cutting that God damn grass [emoji23]
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Quote from: nastygunz on December 06, 2021, 02:38:00 PM
Your welcome... [emoji3]
Quote from: nastygunz on December 01, 2021, 03:21:16 AM
cant you just clean it?
Easier said than done. But I did manage to make it a little easier. [emoji16]
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I am on the other end of the spectrum and love to mow. I just relax when mowing. If I ever get up your way in the summer I will let you know when I will be there and you can have a drink and watch me mow. We will both enjoy that.
Could we stream that live? :innocentwhistle:
Quote from: Hawks Feather on December 07, 2021, 10:57:33 AM
I am on the other end of the spectrum and love to mow. I just relax when mowing. If I ever get up your way in the summer I will let you know when I will be there and you can have a drink and watch me mow. We will both enjoy that.
You are definitely on! I am all for that. You can play with the new Troy-Bilt and we'll put the GoPro on it for Nasty [emoji16]
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My brother in law is a fanatic about his lawn. He mows it in straight lines and doesnt like people walking on it.
That's how my neighbor was. He passed away this year. 91 years old. Maybe when I'm 91 I won't want people on my lawn either.
I remember when we moved in here some 25 years ago. The kids would ride their big wheels in his driveway because it was flat cement. He would come out with the cane and run them off if their wheels touched his grass. My wife used to say that if that cane touches one of her children she's going to ride the big wheel through his grass [emoji1787]
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Lol! We Only had two neighbors anywhere near us when I was a kid, one was a church lady and the other was a grizzled old mountain man who lived in a one room cabin with an outhouse and had a pile behind it of hundreds of empty Wild Irish Rose wine bottles.
We were frequent vistors to Mr. Morrisons cabin, all he did was fish and hunt and let us tag along. He always came to our place for holiday dinner and to hide from the church lady who was always trying to reform him! We thought he was better then Danl Boone when hed have one of us toss an empty shotgun shell in the air n hed blast it with his Ithaca pump!
Put a new Anode rod in. Google it. :biggrin:
What the HAIL. That's pure genius, how come I didn't know about those?
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Quote from: FinsnFur on December 11, 2021, 10:47:35 AMhow come I didn't know about those?
Man is that one wide open for a banning. :innocentwhistle: :alscalls:
Me either!
Quote from: nastygunz on December 07, 2021, 08:13:48 PM
My brother in law is a fanatic about his lawn. He mows it in straight lines and doesnt like people walking on it.
I used to hate lawns and everything to do with them: mowing, watering etc. and I didn't like the unnatural tidiness of lawns. With age, and a wife who loves manicured lawns, I've mellowed. Now I merely dislike them most of the time.