Flushing hot water system with vinegar

airliebeach

Hello
I want to do this. Have the vinegar. But not too sure of best way.
I'm thinking ill empty cold water storage tank (mains tap off, run bathroom tap till tank empty)
Also run hot tap to use up as much of cylinder water as possible.
Then fill tank with vinegar and run cold and hot taps till vinegar comes out.
Leave it sit there over night.
Then do same in reverse so vinegar mostly gone before mains tap back on and tank fill up.

Will this work? (will much vinegar reach cylinder?)
I have bad feeling that cylinder will remain full of water....
Any advice welcome.
Also, bad idea to run power shower on vinegar?

Sleeper12

Why?

Charlie19

Is it for some sort of cleaning gimmick?

dazed+confused

You will have to drain the cylinder manually because it fills from the bottom and empties from the top.

Car99

What type of water system to you have ? Pressurised? Vented or unvented cylinder?

banie01

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Why?

At a guess to descale?
Not how I'd go about it, nor anyone else I know but sure tis the OP's time, boiler and vinegar :P

Sleeper12

banie01 wrote:

At a guess to descale? Not how I'd go about it, nor anyone else I know but sure tis the OP's time, boiler and vinegar

Only the element will have limescale. Wouldn't it be easier to replace the element & use the vinegar on some nice fish and chips?

greasepalm

If living in a place with high limescale would it not be better to get a water purifier fitted to stop the limescale in the first place.

airliebeach

Cheers for responses
I've just moved in and previous owner had no softener fitted even though very hard water.
So now I'm descaling.
Cold water tank cleaned out. (was v. V. Bad)
Now want to clear out pipes and cylinder.
This is first step (proper chemicals later if necessary)
The element in cylinder seems to be working well and looks like has been worked on.
Draining the cylinder would be painful.

If I fill cold tank with vinegar will the cylinder water effectively get replaced by vinegar?

Any suggestions how I should do this if not this way?

Does anyone think this might work?

BTW. I've had softener fitted last week.
BTW. BTW. The actual problem I'm trying to fix is hot taps pressure grand for 10 secs then v. V. Little. My theory is blockage somewhere around cylinder. Pipe between cylinder and tap slowly fills and so empties quick with tap on then nattin. Is theory correct or jibberish?

airliebeach

Car99 wrote: »

What type of water system to you have ? Pressurised? Vented or unvented cylinder?

How would I know?
Tis gravity fed from cold tank in the attic...

airliebeach

airliebeach wrote: »

How would I know?
Tis gravity fed from cold tank in the attic...

Vented (not pressurised)
Thanks Google.

John.G

If you are prepared to remove(or get removed) the (I presume) top mounted dual immersion then that will tell a lot as you will be able to look directly into the cylinder, it shouldn't be too difficult if the immersion has been renewed recently. Also, if the cylinder has a coil, heated from gas/oil boiler and there is a build up of scale then you might notice that the cylinder is taking a long time to heat.

Dtp1979

The symptom you’re describing is a simple fix. Remove the hot outlet pipe from the cylinder. I bet you anything it’s completly blocked with limescale. Probably the first 6” of outlet pipe too. Replace these with new. The rest of the pipework won’t have scale buildup. Maybe the tap spouts. Just replace your cylinder if you think it’s massively corroded with lime. Adding vinegar will cause more harm than good

Charlie19

Could be possible that the cold feed from the storage tank to the cylinder could be partially blocked.

Markcheese

How much vinegar have you got? I assume you'll need hundreds of litres.? You'll need to descale the cylinder... I'm sure there must be simpler ways to descale the lot...

John.G

Charlie19 wrote: »

Could be possible that the cold feed from the storage tank to the cylinder could be partially blocked.

Or combination of Dtp's suggestion & yours. Shut cold feed to the cylinder, remove the outlet pipe, check its condition, if clear stick the other end (if on a T piece) into a bucket after re connecting it and open cold feed slowly, measure the flow rate, this will narrow down where the problem lies, could also possibly be a build up of silt/crap in the bottom of the cylinder.

airliebeach

Cheers.
I've done the vinegar flush.
Resolved the issue nicely.
I had the hot outlet disconnected before and it looked OK. But definitely something like that was the issue.
Hot water now running spot on.

John.G

What type and proportion of vinegar to water did you use and what quantities?.

Muahahaha

Just on using vinegar for descaling the Polish shops sell a brand called Rolnik Ocet which is a 10% concentration , about double the strength of the main vinegars in supermarkets. I used it to descale a coffee machine and it did a pretty good job.

airliebeach

John.G wrote: »

What type and proportion of vinegar to water did you use and what quantities?.

I emptied cold tank. Put in 40l of white vinegar.

An Ri rua

Sleeper12 wrote: »

banie01 wrote:

At a guess to descale? Not how I'd go about it, nor anyone else I know but sure tis the OP's time, boiler and vinegar

Only the element will have limescale. Wouldn't it be easier to replace the element & use the vinegar on some nice fish and chips?

No, the attic tank will be filled with limescale also.
And that's why the OP was starting there...
I did similar during the week, took out a basin of linescale shards from the black attic tank, treated the inlet and ballcock with 5% vinegar and then doused the edges of the tank with a gallon of vinegar and let it sit for 24 hours. Things improved rapidly, scent of hot water from the hot tap, so , yes, it works and you would do it to descale your hot water system....