Aqua hot question - Printable Version
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RE: Aqua hot question - Land Yacht - 11-06-2017
I second Richards comments on bad shower cartridge. I replaced mine to fix that same problem. They are pricey $200 from Newell. You could pull it and try to clean it out.
I have just gone through my system to remove a large quantity of sand. Newell says the AquaHot can create sand out of high mineral water. It was very uniform sand.
I have been using an On-the-Go water softener for almost a year now, and wondering if the softer water loosened a lot of built up mineral scaling from years of hard water. Again, I have been told this is possible, but really am wondering about the cause of the sand in my system. To add to the argument. The sand was captured at all the faucets,and not in the cartridge filter...
Any other opinions on an AquaHot system creating sand?
RE: Aqua hot question - Yachts - 11-06-2017
I got it all the way off but couldn't get the cartridge loose. Guess I need to go buy a cartridge puller?
RE: Aqua hot question - pestes - 11-19-2017
(11-06-2017, 07:18 PM)Yachts Wrote: I got it all the way off but couldn't get the cartridge loose. Guess I need to go buy a cartridge puller?
It took some effort, but I was able to pull the cartridge with a bit more torque than I was comfortable putting on an 18 year old plumbing part. The first time I took it all apart, I wimped out when it wouldn't turn. The second time I was determined and it was probably just a bit more force than I put into it the first time.
I've been fighting sand showing up at all of my fixtures as well. It seems to show up the first time right after Newell tried to fix my hot water issue by exercising the mixing valve (which worked for about 2 days). I cleaned out the screens on the valves of the shower and the kitchen sink about a week ago. Rear bathroom sink was also incredibly slow but couldn't get the aerator off at the time.
I took the shower apart again last night and there was more sand again. Got the rear bath aerator off -- sand. Today I replaced the guts of the Watts mixing valve and the kitchen sink was slow again. More sand. But the hot water seems to stay a constant temperature, which is a huge improvement. Still had the original valve guts with a 1998 date code. I'm pretty sure that nobody had taken our shower fixture apart since 1998 either.
I have a new cartridge coming on Tuesday for the shower. I'm hoping that will be the end of our hot water woes. Still worried about the pressure woes however being that I keep finding sand. The faucets aren't too terrible to clean but the Grohmix in the shower takes a while. But I am getting faster at it.
RE: Aqua hot question - Richard - 11-19-2017
Is it sand or scale from water deposits? Can you crush it?
RE: Aqua hot question - pestes - 11-19-2017
Just cleaned it out of the Ladylux in the kitchen sink again. It looks like sand. I'll save some on the next round and see how crushable it is. In the shower, I think I only found it on the hot water side, so I highly suspect it is scale that's breaking off. The kitchen sink has been a daily operation to get pressure back.
RE: Aqua hot question - Richard - 11-20-2017
Hmmmm, perhaps @"Trainer" Rudy will comment. If the scale is coming from the Aquahot, then I think I saw him circulate vinegar in hot water loop during one of our rallys. The acetic acid should remove scale from the Aquahot.
RE: Aqua hot question - folivier - 11-20-2017
Is it granular or flaky? I would think calcium scale would be more like flakes rather than granular like sand. It's possible that a campground had an upset in their water well and dumped quite a bit of sand into your tank. We've seen that at a few places.
Do you get sand out of your other faucets? If so then you might consider dumping/filling your water tank a few times using the bottom tank drain. Then when the tank is cleaned use the highest water pressure you can and open/close each faucet rapidly a bunch of times to try and flush the sand out of each one.
RE: Aqua hot question - Trainer - 11-20-2017
Scale in the freshwater loop in the heater can be removed by soaking with vinegar and then flushing with very fast moving water. Sand in the loop can be removed by flushing with very fast moving water. Normally one would attached the highest pressure water available directly to the heater and outtake line right at the heater also.
RE: Aqua hot question - Land Yacht - 11-20-2017
Here is a picture of the material that came out of mine. Newell said it came from the AquaHot. Some of the additional indicators that also point to that are:
1. My plastic glass canister filter showed none of the similar debris.
2. Flushing the tank did not seem to help.
I finally cleared it by disconnecting faucet lines at the manifold and blowing air back through them. This allowed enough water pressure to flush the rest.
I have been using an On-the-Go water softener for a year, and wonder if it started loosening the debris, and now hope the water softener will keep scale from forming.
RE: Aqua hot question - Richard - 11-20-2017
I don't think that's sand based on a quick internet search of magnified sand images. I was suprised that all the sand images showed rounded edges on the grains, but thinking about how water moves sand around, it makes sense the grains would look like very mini river rocks.