How difficult is it to change the MagRod in a Hot water heater?
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at
11:48 pm
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Filed under: Drinking Water
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http://www.smellywater.com/
Smelly hot water. Rotten egg odor. Black water. Discolored laundry. Is your water heater cursed? And yeah, it’s a situation that stinks.
The most common cause of smelly water is anaerobic bacteria that exist in some water and react with the magnesium and aluminum sacrificial anodes that come with most water heaters to produce hydrogen sulfide gas, making the classic rotten egg odor. The problem is most common in well systems, either private or municipal.
Softening can make smelly water much worse.
What not to do to get rid of smelly water
We’ve heard of plumbers or handymen advising people to remove the sacrificial anodes from their water heaters as a solution to smelly water. It’s a solution all right, but one that will ensure your water heater rusts out in record time. There is a reason why removing an anode voids the warranty.
Additionally, people have been told to replace a magnesium anode with an aluminum one. Don’t. Aluminum causes just as many rotten eggs as magnesium.
This won’t fix stinky water forever, but it’s a start
Cheap, simple, effective, but not forever. Shut off the cold water valve to your water heater, open a hot faucet somewhere in your house to relieve pressure, drain some water from the tank, open the plumbing on one side, and dump in a few pints of hydrogen peroxide. Close everything up, turn on the cold water again, and let some water run from all spigots and taps. You should be odor-free until the next time you go out of town and allow the water heater to sit, unused. Then you’ll have the problem again. For details on this procedure, go to Know-how.
By the way: use peroxide, not chlorine bleach. Either will work, but peroxide is much safer.
One caveat: if you have smelly water at one sink, but not all of them, dump the peroxide down the basin overflow, instead of into the water heater. Sometimes bacteria can build up in there, too.
The complete fix, in most cases …
Very often, replacing the standard magnesium or aluminum anode rod with an aluminum/zinc alloy anode will solve the problem. The zinc is a key ingredient, since pure aluminum anodes will also reek to high heaven.
For most folks, an aluminum/zinc anode is the cheapest fix for this problem and we urge you to try it first before considering the alternatives. Unless you soften your water. More on that in a moment.
… but, if you have well water and soften, too
We have had a few people buy an aluminum/zinc anode and the odor didn’t go away. That’s vexing for them and us. The cases involved well water that was being softened. Softening can speed up anode consumption by increasing the conductivity of the water. That can increase the amount of hydrogen sulfide gas produced.
So we’ve started offering powered anode rods. A sacrificial anode creates an electrical reaction inside a water heater as it corrodes. A powered anode does the same by feeding electricity into the tank. Since there is no magnesium or aluminum, there’s no smell. We don’t recommend them for everybody, though, because they’re several times more expensive than sacrificial anodes.
It really depends on the location of your water heater. How long is the rod? Its probably a foot or so less long than the height of your water heater. If you do not have the clearance above your water heater, then the job gets a lot more complicated becauuse you will have to disconnect the tank, drain it, etc. This means disconnecting gas and exhaust(is it a gas heater?), and disconnecting other pipes (hot, cold, etc).
After disconnecting, loosen the rod with a pretty massive sized wrench to get strong torc. This will be the other complicating factor…. if the hot water heater is old (more than 8 years) the part may be rusted on and you may do damage to the tank during this step.
So, based on the location of the tank, and its present age, you may want to consider replacing the tank at this time for the amount of work it will take to replace the rod. If you are on the fence, you should monitor the water during draining. If there is a significant amount of sediment build-up and discoloration of the water at the bottom, you should more strongly consider tank replacement.
Good luck.