Water Heater Hard Water Sediment DIY Cleaning Tool

quality and works

This is a great little tool, which does what it claims to do and seems to be pretty durably made. I have just used it, and my experience leaves me with a warning I should submit for others. If you're using this for regular maintenance, this tool definitely does the job. Be ready for some water to flow out while you're swapping the valve for this tool; as long as the valve at the top is closed not much should come out, but you'll definitely need an old towel and a shop vac or carpet cleaner vacuum isn't a bad idea for pulling up water. Go slow with the drill, and I found it helpful to start in reverse at first, and switch rotation directions from time to time, going forward most of the time to bring in debris a little faster. I had the hose going outside at ground level, with the end in a location where the sediment wouldn't be a problem. This is probably going to be a workout for your drill, if you've got a significant build-up of sediment. It was a good 45 minutes of running my older 18V Ryobi brushed drill in 1st gear -- didn't take more than a quarter of the battery to do the job, but the drill got quite warm. Most of the job was at a partial squeeze of the trigger. I ended up using a 90 degree chuck adapter (one that maintains the same output speed, 1:1 gear ratio) and that made the job more comfortable, but wasn't necessary. The warning is for those using this as I did, in a situation where the water heater had not been properly maintained. In this case sediment had built up significantly. I needed to drain the tank to replace the lower element which had failed, and the sediment was complicating that process (and may have contributed to the failure) so I purchased this tool to help. When I finally got the tank cleaned and drained, I pulled the heater element only to find that what I removed was just the base of it, with two severed stumps of the element sticking out. The corroded and weakened element had been completely ripped off the base by the tool while I was cleaning the tank, and that discovery started a frustrating hour-long adventure with a borescope and grabber tool, to fish for the mangled element and pull it out of the hole. Overall I'm pretty impressed with the idea and execution of this tool. It's clearly manufactured to a cost and it feels like something that will last a few jobs and will then need to be replaced. And even so I'd call that a great deal at this price. Apparently this tool was manufactured from ABS until recently, when they switched to polycarbonate, and I think that was a fantastic choice. Polycarbonate is an extremely tough material, and it appears they did not skimp on it for the dimensions and thicknesses of the tool. It did jam a few times during operation as it attempted (and mostly failed) to injest very large chunks of what looked like anode rod material (I need to replace that too), which I dealt with by reversing the tool briefly. That said when I removed the tool after the job was done, a couple of these chunks were still lodged in the inlet where the agitator spring emerges and had been grinding away at the tool for an unknown time. Perhaps the designed shape of the water passage through the tool will evolve over time to make these jams less likely. No idea if the manufacturing would be feasible, but I'd easily pay 3-4 times as much for an improved "pro" model made from stainless steel, with clear polycarbonate windows in appropriate locations.

Works as advertised. Good instructions. Made in the USA. I get the impression that this company actually cares, which is nice. It is plastic, albeit a tough plastic. I can see how it could break if you're not careful, but just be careful. Same as with any tool. I would be curious to know what a metal one would cost. Like brass or stainless. Maybe even with a viewing port molded in. Probably a lot more haha. Either way, this one works great and I'm happy with it.

I will always give this 5 stars if I could I would give it 100 stars! If you think your hot water tank is clogged then it probably is! I have a 50 gallon hot water tank and have well water with high iron and calcium in it. I have had the hot water tank for 7 years and never changed the elements or cleaned or flushed it out. The breaker started to kick and so I bought new elements and saw this when searching for the elements, thought why not give it a try and when I tell you the 50 gallon hot water tank was only a 40 gallon because of all the crud that was in it. After filling a 5 gallon bucket full of it we just decided to let it out on the ground. My hot water tank now is cleaned out and now I don't run out of hot water A+ to the makers of this item.

Works well. The cable detached a few times. But it does work well to break up clumps of calcium inside the water heater