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Carbonated hot water anyone?

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spd
spd Member Posts: 23
in Domestic Hot Water
Has anyone ever enncountered this problem where the hot water is frothy, fizzy and white? Could it be a dead annode? The tank has  2 coils, one for the solar and one for the boiler but it is the DHW at the taps that is doing this: 

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  • EdTheHeaterMan
    EdTheHeaterMan Member Posts: 7,835
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    You might be able to save money on Alka-Seltzer
    Edward F Young. Retired HVAC ContractorSpecialized in Residential Oil Burner and Hydronics
    spd
  • Larry Weingarten
    Larry Weingarten Member Posts: 3,293
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    Hi, It's either air or hydrogen gas from an anode... or both. What's your water supply; well or city? Is this milkiness only on first draw in the morning? Is it only in the hot side? A way to test the water heater is to remove the anode and plug that port for a few days. See if the milkiness goes away. If so, using a powered anode can help.

    Yours, Larry
    spdUnionThermal
  • kcopp
    kcopp Member Posts: 4,432
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    I have seen this in new water heater installs more often than older. Also usually on well water vs. municipal. One manufacturer had a bad run of anode rods that they purchased from one of their vendors.... caused all kinds of issues w/ air and bubbles. it was even an issue w/ aluminum and magnesium types. The powered anode is a great fix.

    UnionThermal
  • UnionThermal
    UnionThermal Member Posts: 1
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    Thanks, Larry:

    In answer to your questions...

    - The water is supplied by the city and comes in to the house via a relatively new water main.

    - The milkiness and fizziness is constant. It does not abate no matter how much we run the hot water.

    - The fizziness is only happening to the hot water. Our cold water is fine and normal.

    Additionally...

    We started noticing the hot water fizziness problem last Friday. Then on Saturday we noticed that we were no longer getting any hot water in the house at all. When I went to check our thermal-grid monitoring system I noticed that data collection on our system completely fritzed out and stopped working on Thursday morning and no data had been collected at all over the weekend, which is unusual.

    When I went down to the basement to look at things, I noticed that the pump on the hot water tank, which should only be running when it's sunny on our roof, seemed to be stuck on. Also, the line to the expansion tank was kind of chugging away. I made a little video of this too:

    Our oil boiler, which we use as backup to our solar thermal system, had also shut down and was in need of being reset. Then I received a notice, below, from our system monitor that a relay had been stuck on for two days straight.

    I don't know what the anode is or where to find it. But it does seem like something electrical/chemical has gone haywire re: our hot water tank or the system around it.

    Thx,
    --A

    From: "support@solarwave.com"
    Subject: 664 Union St alert: Relay 1 Active for 48 Hours
    Date: October 17, 2022 at 10:56:57 AM EDT
    To: "aaron@naparstek.com"

    The Relay R1 has been active for at least 48 hours. In normal operation the relay should turn off during the night time.

    The relay may possibly be set to ON or MAX on the controller instead of Auto. Please have a Technician check the Settings tab of the report or the controller directly to make sure the Relay is set to Auto.The system may not operate correctly with this relay set to ON or MAX.

    There is also a possibility that the collector sensor, or tank sensor is malfunctioning. In this case please check all sensor connections to the controller, and all splices along the sensor cable. Replace sensor if needed.
    Larry Weingarten said:

    Hi, It's either air or hydrogen gas from an anode... or both. What's your water supply; well or city? Is this milkiness only on first draw in the morning? Is it only in the hot side? A way to test the water heater is to remove the anode and plug that port for a few days. See if the milkiness goes away. If so, using a powered anode can help.

  • Larry Weingarten
    Larry Weingarten Member Posts: 3,293
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    Hi, Backing up a bit, the goal is to find where what is probably air is getting in. I don't know your equipment (certainly others here do), but are there any air vents that could be experiencing low pressure, so air could be sucked in? A band-aid approach would be to install an air vent on top of the hot water tank, but I'd rather get to the root of things. Certainly, the equipment needs to run correctly no matter, so I'd tackle that first and see if the air problem goes away.

    Yours, Larry

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