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Alden Miller · 04-30-2015, 08:14 AM

My trailer was lived in for a few years by the PO. They had it hooked up in Florida and because of this I have a bunch of minerals in my water system. Every time we travel and hook up to water I have to disconnect the faucet strainers in the kitchen and the bathroom to clear out the minerals that have broken free. I was thinking of putting vinegar in my water system to dissolve the minerals. How would you do this?

I was thinking of picking up a few gallons of vinegar (ten or more) and putting it in the fresh water tank and then pumping it into my plumbing. Then I was going to let it sit for a couple of weeks to let it dissolve the minerals. After that I was going to flush it repeatedly with fresh water.

How does that sound for a plan? Does anyone know of a different way I can approach this?

-Alden

dznf0g · 04-30-2015, 08:22 AM

Sounds fine to me. I only use vinegar annually in the water heater for scale softening/removal. The rest of my system has been used frequently and not scaled up. I use a softener in areas with very hard water.

HowieE · 04-30-2015, 08:50 AM

generally that material comes form the hot water heater and shows up just after filling the heater. I would drain the heater and then while filling it, this will disturb the sediment, open the bathroom hot water faucet, strainer removed, and flush the material as the heater fills. Once the heater if full I would flush the other faucets and let things settle after that.

Another option is to drain the heater. Insert a short piece of 3/8 fuel line hose and do short fill cycles of the tank using the hose as a siphon to pull the disturbed sediment.

aftermath · 04-30-2015, 08:51 AM

I don't see anything wrong with your plan. My water pump has a filter so you might want to check that as well. Let us know how this worked out.

Howie makes a very good point. I have seen commercial tools used to flush out water tanks. You can remove the drain plug and wash it out. This might be the issue.

mojo · 04-30-2015, 08:57 AM

If you google atwood water heater, there are directions for purging the calcium buildup from the water heater. If you remove the pressure relief valve, you can pour in several gallons of vinegar, replace and heat up the water/vinegar mix. Let it sit for a day and then drain by removing the drain plug and flushing the tank with a hose.

dznf0g · 04-30-2015, 09:00 AM

Here is my vinegar process:

With heater drained remove the plug. Procure a fitting which will thread into the plug hole on one end and fit a hose on the other. (Chose you own hose setup). The hose should be long enough for the end of it to be held above the level of the top of the tank.

Close the heater bypass valve (winter antifreeze positions).

Open the pressure relief valve at the top of the heater.

Use a funnel with the hose end higher than the top of the tank and pour in vinegar until it begins to come out the relief valve.

Bungee the hose end to something (I use the awning arm) to hold it up high.

Let soak for a day or so.

Lower hose and drain the vinegar into a bucket and dispose.

Remove the hose.

use one of these to flush the vinegar and residue out of the tank through the drain hole.

Water Heater Tank Rinser - Camco 11691 - Water Heaters - Camping World

Re-install the plug and close the releif valve, open bypass and you're done.

Rhino33 · 04-30-2015, 10:14 AM

These are some great tips - I think water heater sediment is causing our bathroom sink faucet to have very low pressure when the shower and toilet are fine. We recently repaired our water heater, so we likely have build up that is now breaking loose also.

Alden Miller · 04-30-2015, 01:30 PM

Wow, thanks!

I thought it might be the heater but wasn't sure. I am willing to give that a try first.

-Alden

AWCHIEF · 04-30-2015, 01:34 PM

I had not thought of doing that. Sounds like a project. My water heater is not even a year old but I suppose that build up can happen quickly in heavily mineralized water.

JCWDCW · 04-30-2015, 01:48 PM

Re bathroom sink flow flow; the areator is likely plugged. Unscrew it and clean the screen. We had this same problem with our kitchen sink...took me months to finally figure it out!

JCW

Plan-B · 04-30-2015, 02:30 PM

Thanks, I learned something!!!

Alden Miller · 04-30-2015, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JCWDCW

Re bathroom sink flow flow; the areator is likely plugged. Unscrew it and clean the screen. We had this same problem with our kitchen sink...took me months to finally figure it out!

JCW

Yep, that's the beginning of each trip after turning the water on. Remove the aerator from both the kitchen and the bathroom sinks.

-Alden

iowaroots · 04-30-2015, 05:31 PM

If you winterize using vinegar rather than anti-freeze, without activating the bypass valve and go ahead and fill the hot water tank too, you will have vinegar everywhere. Guessing 7-8 gallons. Best of luck.

TomKirk · 05-01-2015, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alden Miller

I was thinking of picking up a few gallons of vinegar (ten or more) and putting it in the fresh water tank.....

If you put anything in that tank besides water, you'll have a helluva time getting it out. This means you'll hafta flush your water tank out several times 'til you get it right.

So do your chemistry research first. Get a pH meter. Monitor pH values before, during, and after. As a control, measure pH in your city water.

Since calcium deposits are on the basic side, you'll need an acid strong enough to dissolve them. Since vinegar is a weak (citric) acid you will need to flush your plumbing repeatedly until calcium deposits disolve and/or break up.

I think I would back-flush (several times) your plumbing with straight vinegar, like you would when you winterize with RV anti-freeze. Leave vinegar in plumbing over night. Back-flush with fresh water. Then replace with fresh vinegar. Wash, rinse, repeat.

However, when calcium deposits break up in chunks, faucets (mixing valves) may clog even further. So you hafta be patient with this procedure and let the vinegar do it's job.

BTW - I'm skeptical about putting vinegar in the water tank. I would back-flush instead.

IMHO, calcium deposits will be much more pronounced in hot water plumbing; not so much so in cold water plumbing.

Tom

HowieE · 05-01-2015, 10:05 AM

Lets get serious here. There is no reason to put vinegar in the water system. You put vinegar in plastic you may never get it out. Just flush the calcium deposits from the water heater and remove the strainers from the faucets till the flow clear of deposits.

You will have more next year.

iowaroots · 05-01-2015, 11:36 AM

Not sure if I would use vinegar in my RV this way just yet but I can tell you this. When our home dishwasher stirs up an odor I dump about 1/2 gallon of white vinegar in it and put it through a normal wash cycle. When the cycle is complete there is no longer an offensive odor nor do I smell vinegar.

Alden Miller · 05-01-2015, 11:58 AM

I picked up four gallons of white vinegar today and I have a Camco water tank rinser coming in today too. I read the atwood manual which says to fill it with four gallons of vinegar and two gallons of water. It also says to let it run through six (I believe) cycles of heating and cooling while this stuff is in the tank. Then flush it well. That's the plan for this weekend.

-Alden

dznf0g · 05-01-2015, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alden Miller

I picked up four gallons of white vinegar today and I have a Camco water tank rinser coming in today too. I read the atwood manual which says to fill it with four gallons of vinegar and two gallons of water. It also says to let it run through six (I believe) cycles of heating and cooling while this stuff is in the tank. Then flush it well. That's the plan for this weekend.

-Alden

I have never diluted mine.....and I didn't know about the heating cycles.

Alden Miller · 05-03-2015, 02:48 PM

I found a video on YouTube about doing this and picked up one more tip. So here'so what I did.

Drained and flushed the tank. I repeatedly flushed it with the camco wand until the water came out clean and no more chunks were coming out. At first the water was milky colored and lots of chunks were coming out. Then I put in the vinegar and topped off the tank with water. I turned the hot water heater on and let it run overnight. In the morning I drained it and flushed it again. Then I filled and emptied it a couple times. Lastly I ran water through the lines for about fifteen minutes.

-Aden

Minno · 05-03-2015, 04:37 PM

Vinegar can be used instead of baking soda to get rid of bleach taste in your tanks and lines when you sanitize your system. It leaves no aftertaste, even in plastic tanks. Takes several gallons of white vinegar for a 50 gal. tank mixed with water. Therefore, no problems using white vinegar. I have used it this way, but still prefer baking soda.

Kay