Water heater repair and replacement in Lebanon

Minerals settle on the bottom of a tank. On a gas unit they act as insulation between the flame and the water, which wastes fuel and overheats the steel. On an electric unit they bury the lower element. A heater in hard water that has never been flushed may be in worse shape than its age suggests.

A heater in hard water can look fine from the outside and be in a bad state inside. When we drain one and a stream of gritty sediment comes out, we know why it has been popping. That grit has been sitting on the bottom for years, and the best thing we can do for the next heater is to keep it from happening again.

An annual flush helps. A water softener helps more. Neither is required for a good installation, and neither will save a tank that has been neglected for fifteen years.

Hard water forms scale inside the heat exchanger of a tankless heater, which reduces efficiency and eventually causes error codes. The fix is to flush it with a mild acid, usually white vinegar or a descaling solution, circulated through the unit with a small pump. The process takes about an hour. The unit is isolated with service valves, the hoses are connected, and the solution runs in a loop before the system is rinsed.

If your tankless was installed without service valves, we add them. Without them, descaling is much harder. In Lebanon, where the water runs hard, yearly descaling is a good rule. Skipping it for several years can leave scale so thick that the unit never recovers.