I have a client that is returning after a 9 month absence. He turned off the power and water to the hot water heater but did not drain it. Today as I was doing some repairs in prep for their return on the 20th I turned on the hot water heater. After some time for the water to heat up I turned on a tap, boy did the water smell foul. I ran it for about 20 min. but to no avail. Is there some way I can run some bleach water in the drain or some other way to get rid of the foul smell? I sure would not want to shower in this water. The water heater is under the house in the open, and the temp around here rarely goes below 65 even at night. good bacteria growing temps.
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Replies
Have you checked the anode? Sometimes when those are depleted they will cause a sulfur smell in the hot water. But you may be right about the bacteria. I don't know for sure, but maybe removing the water supply and adding bleach to the heater and letting it sit for a while before draining it would work. I guess I'd drain it, fill it and drain it again if possible to get the bleach out.
If you have a whole house filter somewhere near the heater, you can open that, add bleach and flush the bleach through the system.
If there is no filter, maybe disconnect the cold water feed, dump in some bleach, reconnect the cold water and flush the bleach through..
Turn off the water and remove the safety relief.
Then use the drain and completely drain the tank.
Then close the drain and throught the PRV connection add bleach. My guess would be 1/10 of the tank size.
Replace the PRV and turn on the water. Then turn on a hot water faucet just only enough to get rid of the air.
Then wait 24 hours.
To say time trying to flush the whole tank through the faucetts you might want to drain the tank afterwards and then refill and flush.
Mahalo, I think your solution is the simplest and will give it a go this weekend.
Mahalo to all, I had not even thought about going in from the top, I was stuck in my thoughts of draining and then pumping in through the drain. Two or more heads are really better, sometimes we get tunnel vision on a problem.