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DavMar View Drop Down
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    Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 7:00pm
Decided this weekend to start the process of de-winterizing the Pod for another camping season. So I thought I'd share with all of you the reason why you should always pull out your anode rod when you put your camper up for the season. I believe this is the culprit that caused one of my faucets to stop up at the valve and its only a 2 year old rod!



 
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Tars Tarkas View Drop Down
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Posts: 1446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 7:10pm
Yeah, maybe, but that looks pretty good for a two year old anode.  I don't know where the sacrificial material goes -- I thought it dissolved, but even if it flakes off, removing and flushing the screen at faucet is norma., trivial, maintenance.

That anode rod doesn't look bad at all.

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DavMar View Drop Down
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Posts: 592 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 8:09pm
Originally posted by Tars Tarkas


That anode rod doesn't look bad at all.



Tar, I hate to see what a really bad one looks like! LOL

If the only concern was maybe screwing off a screen to flush out a faucet I wouldn't care. But I think I can safely bet the bank that it was flacks from this anode rod that plugged up my cold water supply at the bathroom sink while on an outing this past season. I ended up having to remove the faucet valve and blowing out the water line with compressed air to clear the obstruction of what looked like little whitish/silver flakes. Which is very suspiciously similar to my eye to this corroded anode rod. Maybe its just a coincident, maybe not, so why not remove, inspect and replace every so often, they are cheap enough.  
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Tars Tarkas View Drop Down
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Posts: 1446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 8:21pm

TT
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 8:57pm
Originally posted by Tars Tarkas

Yeah, maybe, but that looks pretty good for a two year old anode.  I don't know where the sacrificial material goes -- I thought it dissolved, but even if it flakes off, removing and flushing the screen at faucet is norma., trivial, maintenance.


The anode material does dissolve, it enters the water in ionic form, keeping the less reactive steel water heater tank from doing so instead.  Or at least that is how its supposed to work..... 
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DavMar View Drop Down
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Posts: 592 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 9:33pm
Originally posted by offgrid


The anode material does dissolve, it enters the water in ionic form, keeping the less reactive steel water heater tank from doing so instead.  Or at least that is how its supposed to work..... 


Tars posted an informative link to a chart of anode wear..... except...... it's for home hot water tanks not RV's and I've been told, right or wrong, there is a difference. I understand the theory, offgird, but I have to be honest I am perplexed as to why an RV anode in a short time will dissolve but that most home hot water tank anodes will outlive the heater. What's up with that I wonder???
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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Posts: 966 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2019 at 11:10pm
Most residential electric water heaters have a lining, usually glass or enamel, so the anode rod is only really protecting the protruding metal parts, fittings, heating elements, possibly some surfaces of the steel tank exposed to the water, etc...so I suspect that is why the anode rods last so long.

I have NO idea if our little 6 gallon RV water heaters are glass-lined, but I would assume not, since they also are heated externally from a propane burner that is heating up the steel tank itself. 
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Tars Tarkas View Drop Down
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Posts: 1446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2019 at 1:26am
The illustration is accurate for any hot water heater anode as to showing what used up looks like.

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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2019 at 7:45am
https://www.airxcel.com/suburban/products/water-heaters

Suburban says our tanks are porcelain lined. So DavMar, you are asking a good question, I don't know why the anodes in our RV tanks might disappear faster than in home tanks. They could have about the same surface area of exposed steel (presumably just the fittings), so I could see them using up the anode at about the same rate, maybe.

I haven't personally experienced the RV anodes going faster, and now that I've been using a tankless home water heater for several years I don't have anything to compare it to. Is that the general experience on the forum? 
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lostagain View Drop Down
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Posts: 2587 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2019 at 8:13am
On possible source of stray current could be the electric heating element.  Many people don't know where the switch is for the electric heating element and unintentionally leave it on, along with the water heater breaker, erroneously thinking the operation of the heating element is controlled by the switch on the galley that only controls gas heating.  The burned up heating element still has an open circuit going to it even though the actual element is broken, thus providing a potential for leakage of current into the water.  

In marinas, where some have a lot of stray current in the water while others don't, you see a big difference in how fast the sacrificial zincs protecting the propellers are eaten up.  Some make it a season or two, while others can't last even six months.  
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