Sounds Like Marbles in my Hot Water Heater!

16 years ago

Problem: When we turn on the hot water anywhere in the house, the hot water heater itself, not any pipes, makes noises like there are marbles loose in the tank itself. It is a natural gas "American Pro-Line 40 Gal" tank. I called the 800 number for American Water Heater Co and was basically told, "Sorry", only two year warranty on parts, I should pour a gallon of vinegar into the tank, and let it sit for 6 hours, then flush it out several times. When I asked them how do I get the vinegar into the tank, I was told that they don't supply technicians for that and to hire a plumber. Real nice customer service! All the fitting are soldered. Can someone tell me a trick to get vinegar into the tank without un-soldering the fittings or calling a plumber? In the meantime, I drained the tank, and all this soft white stuff came out thru the hose onto the driveway. Obviously hard water residue. I played with putting more water back into the tank a few times and then draining again, but that was a slow process. I hope this process will help eliminate the noise. Does anyone have any other suggestions other than buying a new water heater? The tank is only 4 years old. Thanks! Paul

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

ryanhughes
16 years ago
Yes: Call a plumber to come out and give you a diagnosis on the problem and fix it accordingly. Sorry if this is not the advice you're looking for, but I've never heard marbles in any of my water heaters... I use electric, though. If this is a natural gas problem, that would make it an even more serious problem.
0
baymee
16 years ago
I kind of doubt that vinegar will help you unless it's in a very large amount. You'd somehow have to shut off the water supply to the tank and pump in the vinegar through a tee, as you let the same amount of water come out the outlet side or drain it completely and fill the tank. Not much of a nice job.
0
Related Discussions
How do I flush my hot water heater
Q
Comments (3)
There is a faucet-like valve on the bottom that takes a standard garden hose. Attach hose, open valve, let several gallons of gunky water out. Also look into "sacrificial anode" for it.
...See More
Hot Water Heater Sizing and Running out of Hot Water
Q
Comments (5)
I have a Triangle Tube Series 50 (45 gal.) in a 2,000 sf house with 2 bathrooms. My plumber said I should put in a smaller unit and I wanted a bigger one. We compromised on this unit, because he said a bigger one would consume a lot more energy. I take a 25 min shower with a 5 gpm shower head, and I get enough hot water from this unit, but it took some doing. The first thing I would suggest is to turn the temperature on the water heater all the way up. We have an L-shaped ranch with the water heater on one end of the house, and the master bath on the other (over an unheated crawl space). So we need to keep the water very hot to get enough hot water at the bathroom. The hotter the water is, the more cold water you'll mix in, and the longer your hot water will last. Despite this, I was still running out of hot water after about 15 min. As my shower valve doesn't have a volume control, I put a small valve on the shower arm which allowed me to slow down or shut off the water when I was soaping myself. This allowed the hot water to recover a bit before I finished my shower. The real breakthrough came last summer though, when I had a new boiler installed. The installer told me that the circulator pipes between my boiler and water heater were only 3/4", when they should be 1 1/4". He also set up the new boiler so that the water heater gets priority over heat to the house, and the boiler automatically heats up to 180 degrees whenever the unit calls for more hot water. Now I have plenty of hot water for a 25 min shower followed by a shave, even without turning the volume of hot water down during my shower. I think you should be able to get enough hot water out of this unit provided you use it to its full capacity. You may need to have someone do some work on your boiler though. One rule of thumb I live by, is to never let a contractor tell me how much water or hot water I need. Aside from this, do you have separate shower valves for your 2 shower heads, and are you satisfied with the water flow? Many newer shower valves limit the flow to 2.5 gpm or less. You can check your actual water flow with a 2.5 or 5 gal bucket and a stopwatch. If you're getting enough flow out of the shower arms, but not out of the shower heads, there are some places that sell shower heads with easily removable flow restrIctors.
...See More
Does Tankless Hot Water Heater = Inconsistent Hot Water?
Q
Comments (36)
riellebee So I'm going to rough-in some numbers: Range: 15k btu/h Fireplace: 80k btu/h Furnace: 75k btu/h (x2) = 150kbtu/h water heater 200k btu/h (x2) = 400k btu/h Total potential load: 645k btu/h - again, an estimate. You can check your furnaces if you want to be be sure. is it likely that you would have enough things on at the same time to exceed your 425k btu/h service? - Yes, it's quite likely. What happens when you exceed the capacity of the service? The gas pressure drops and the range and the gas logs will just not run at full capacity - no big deal. But the things like the furnace and water heaters will throw error codes showing low gas pressure. The water heaters are likely to have that problem anyway, because at 30' of 3/4" pipe they are only getting about enough gas to run one of those heaters full tilt (the water heaters are variable input). The meter may be 20' away, but in actual length of pipe it's probably close to 30' including elbows. I can see close to 10' of pipe in the photo. The fact that the return line for the circulation isn't warm suggests it's not working. Fix that and insulate your pipes and your immediate problem will probably go away. BTW: Insulating the pipes is not expensive or difficult. Foam pipe insulation comes in 4' sections that just snaps around the pipes and uses self adhesive strips to hold it closed. It cuts with scissors. Even if you just did the exposed pipes in the basement you would reduce a lot of heat loss. My guess is that the builder can't really fix the "over-subscribed" gas service at a reasonable cost. One solution is to use a different water heater. A hybrid tank/tankless would solve the problem. The link goes to an AO Smith Vertex 75 gal water heater 100k btu/h and is 92% efficient and vents with the PVC vent pipe you have. I'm not particularly endorsing that brand - just using it as an example. It would provide you with plenty of hot water (you could run 1 shower continuously) and would reduce your BTU load by 300k BTU/h (gas service problem AND undersized gas pipe to water heater solved). In addition, because it's a tank of hot water - along with about 6' of hot water in the pipe - your wait would be significantly reduced even without a circulation pump. It sucks for your builder because it would cost them about $3500-4000 to fix it. They could probably realize some salvage value from the tankless heaters - say $1000-1500. But If they are only out $2-3k total I'd say they should consider themselves lucky.
...See More
do tankless heaters recirc hot water thru the mainline like a grundfos
Q
Comments (11)
I had a loop in my last house. I calculated the heat loss at 8 times a tank. It was an insulated loop. People really overestimate the standby losses of a tank. An important factor is fuel. An electric tank has very little heat loss while gas models have more because you can't insulate parts of it as well - think the exhaust. I think people relate experiences with old tanks but forget that modern tanks are insulated better. When I did the math, my 80 gallon electric tank lost 350 kwh a year. I threw an extra layer of insulation on it that probably saved 100 of those. You can do the calculations. 100 feet of 3/4 pex pipe matches an 80 gallon tank in surface area. Code specifies R3 for pipes and going above R4 is hard based on space. The reality is many are not insulated at all. A good new tank has an R value of 24. When I calculated the "8 times", I had a 200 ft loop (estimated) and I tried to get R6 or so. Now pipes and hot water heaters aren't in the same places - and a hot water heater in a cold garage would be worse. So not all situations are equal. And pipe insulation done in the field with twists and turns will never match the factory foam put around a tank. On demand systems or better design will win every time. We put a small tank under the kitchen sink and all the other fixtures are close enough to the tank so no pump needed. We did plumb in a return to the farthest bathroom but haven't found the need to pump it.
...See More
rocklandguyZ8,SC
Original Author
16 years ago
The guy at American Water Heater Co said to put a gallon of vinegar in and just let it sit for six hours, then drain it out, and rinse the tank a few times. I'm not a plumber to be cutting the pipes, otherwise I would try it. What could I lose but a gallon of vinegar and my time! But I don't see any way of getting the vinegar in at this point. If I ever have the tank replaced, I would have a tee put in for future use like this! Yea, yesterday when I was draining the tank, I opened the PRV so that it would drain faster. Now I have a very slow drip coming from it. Probably some residue not letting it seat properly. I'll wait to see if it heals by this afternoon, otherwise I'll be off to replace that also. Everything snowballs!!!
0
baymee
16 years ago
Opening the PRV is always risky. It's supposed to be tested when one services a boiler, but many are afraid to touch it. At least you can replace it. Isn't it also on the top of the heater? You could add vinegar there as long as everything is shut down, shut off, and cooled down. And if you don't know exactly how to do it, get a qualified person to do it.
0
rbanks
16 years ago
Just replace it. If you don't know how to sweat solder copper pipe, now's the time to learn, it's easy. This is not a difficult job, although it can be somewhat time consuming (6-8 hours max for a beginner, maybe). Ignore those here who tell you it's much too complicated for someone like you, they are interested only in their profit margin.

Here is a link that might be useful: How To Replace a Water Heater
0
sparky823
16 years ago
I have always heard that the "marbles" you hear is just the build up of the calcium junk that is always in water heaters. The only thing I hear that it affects is after a few years and it gets so deep in there it makes the burner less efficient. I have heard this before in mine-different ones I have had-although I have electric-but I just let it rumble and eventually you dont notice it anymore. If I have to change an element though I try to clean as much as I can out of the tank but it isn't easy.
0

Sounds Like Marbles in my Hot Water Heater!

Comments (6)

ryanhughes

baymee

Related Discussions

rocklandguyZ8,SC
Original Author

baymee

rbanks

sparky823

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Sounds Like Marbles in my Hot Water Heater!

Comments (6)

ryanhughes

baymee

Related Discussions

rocklandguyZ8,SCOriginal Author

baymee

rbanks

sparky823

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

rocklandguyZ8,SC
Original Author