Cleaning a tankless WH

Jeff Lawrence_25

I received a call this afternoon about their tankless WH being limed up and showing a "LC" on the readout. (No, I will not say the name of the unit)

I looked at the on-line directions and it showed a set-up for de-liming the unit. Are these things bad about liming up? As a rule, our water here is fairly soft without a lot of dissolved minerals.

Any suggestion for setting up a circ system for de-liming them?

Thanks.

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Plumdog_2

Supposed to have valving

below the heater to shut off both hot and cold with full port ball valves; then tees with purge valves with hose threads between the ball valves and the heater. Then you can use a high volume purge pump to circulate vinegar from your bucket thru the heater for about an hour; then rinse real good. Good luck. Haven't had one lime up yet, but could be every year; so I hear.

Jeff Lawrence_25

That's

what the directions said.

My problem (and I haven't really looked into it yet) is finding the high volume pump.

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Constantin

... or faster...

... when I was a wee lad in Germany, I lived in an area with very hard water. We had to vinegar all the aerators, etc. 3-4 times a year to get all the calcium carbonate out. The washing machine suffered even more, as most EU models heat their water. Hence the need for "Calgon" or other water softeners that were added along with the detergent.

In the absence of a water softening system, a hard water area is yet another argument for an indirect with a large HX, I guess. The lower supply temperatures that a HX with a big surface area allows would slow the rate of lime build up.

Scott Gregg

Somthing like a Grunfoss 26-64 should do fine

Noritz has a diagram on their site. I have only heard of one other liming up.

Brand won't matter. The water will. It would be good to have the water tested and most likey install them a treatment system. If this unit has only been in for a year or so, their water issue needs to be addressed. If it has been in for close to 10, be glad it's not a tank...you'd be replacing it.

You can make your own easily. The system uses your pump with a hose sucking out of a bucket full of vinagar and water or CLR, or boiler tankless coil cleaner. THe discharge side connects with a hose to the cold water side of the tankless. Another hose comes from the hot side of the tankless back to the bucket. (Turn off the unit and flush it out good when your done with fresh water.)

It should take about 45 minutes. THis pipe kit makes it VERY easy!

http://www.webstonevalves.com/isolatorexp.html

Dirk Wright

sales oppurtunity

Think of it as an oppurtunity to sell a water softener...

JackFre

Could be any on-demand unit

It's the nature of the beast in a hard water condition. The good thing is that the Rinnai (which I think this is as that is the "Lime Control" error code) does identify the situation so you can get the unit cleaned up before it goes...well, before it goes! Rinnai's installation instructions detail the proper piping method. Webstones Isolator (pt #40443)valve kit makes this procedure a snap, once you have a pump that will give the flow some action. Water treatment is in order on this system.