Eww

The water heater in the garage has been off for 6 months and when that happens the water normally smells pretty sulfur-y and we want to steam clean the carpets and the last thing we wanted was them to be even worse afterwards. So I set out to clean the water heater. Last time I just threw some bleach in the water inlet and ran it through, it seemed to help. This time I was going to put some vinegar in there for hopefully a more mild approach. However I had one of those element removing tools that I had never managed to get working on the old water heater in the house causing me to just cave in and install a new one. So I drilled some bigger holes in the tool closer to the hex part of the wrench and it worked a treat. I didn't like what I saw inside. Each element was pretty caked but what was worse when I stuck my finger in the bottom element hole I could feel what felt like gravel ewww.... What followed was a lot of flushing water through, rocking the water heater and poking at it with various spokes and long screwdrivers and you can see the pile of gunk that came out. It was all scaly flakes and took ages to come out. That pile's not even all of it. Think about that next time you think about using hot water to clean your teeth or for cooking (ugh!). If you haven't flushed out your hot water tank, perhaps now would be a good time?