Did You Know, Your Water Heater is Full of ROCKS?

Okay, not rocks exactly. But if your water heater is more than a couple years old, there is a layer of real mineral stone sitting at the bottom of that tank right now!!

And, it grows a little more every day.

Where the “rocks” come from

Water in the Tri-Cities carries dissolved minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium. They stay invisible while the water is cold. Heat the water up, though, and those minerals come out of solution and settle to the bottom of the tank as sediment. Give it a few years and that sediment hardens into a crusty layer that looks and feels like gravel. Plumbers pull it out in scoops. It is genuinely strange to see the first time!

What sediment does to your water heater

That layer sits directly between the burner and the water it is trying to heat. So your water heater burns more energy to do the same job, your showers take longer to warm up, and your utility bill creeps upward for no visible reason.

Sediment also makes noise. If your tank rumbles or pops, that sound is water trapped under the sediment layer flashing into steam and forcing its way out. A rumbling tank is not “just being old,” it is telling you something.

Worst of all, sediment shortens the life of the tank itself. The bottom overheats, the metal fatigues, and a water heater that should have lasted 12 years starts leaking at 8.

The fix is a flush

The good news: this is one of the easiest problems in plumbing to stay ahead of. An annual water heater flush drains the tank and clears the sediment out before it hardens into that gravel layer. It costs very little compared to replacing a tank early, and afterward you usually notice the difference in how fast your hot water recovers.

We look at water heaters now, too!

If you have not heard, A-One Air does plumbing now, and water heaters are a big part of that. Repair, replacement, tankless, the whole thing. So if your tank is rumbling, or you cannot remember the last time it was flushed… now is a very good time to find out what is down there.

Call A-One and we will take a look. Your water heater has been carrying those rocks long enough!