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US 5,494,527 AGranted
Method of cleaning and maintaining hot water heaters
AssigneeH.E.R.C. Products Incorporated
InventorsJerome H. Ludwig, Edward C. Perry
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of cleaning and maintaining a hot water heater tank contaminated with water scale and sediment by introducing an aqueous acidic treatment solution, retaining the acidic solution for a sufficient time to dissolve or suspend said scale and sediment, and then draining the spent solution containing the dissolved or suspended scale and sediment to provide a clean hot water heater tank.
Claims5
A method of cleaning and maintaining a hot water heater consisting of
- providing a hot water heater tank having an interior contaminated with water scale and sediment, said tank having a bottom drain and heating means near the bottom of the tank;
- draining said water from said hot water heater tank to provide an empty tank;
- introducing an aqueous acidic treatment solution of an acid selected from the group consisting of a mineral acid and an organic acid, and mixtures thereof, into said empty tank through said bottom drain and in the vicinity of said heating means in a sufficient amount for removal of said water scale and sediment from the tank bottom;
- retaining said acidic treatment solution in said hot water heater tank for a sufficient time to dissolve or suspend said water scale and sediment;
- draining said acidic treatment solution to provide a drained solution containing the dissolved or suspended water scale and sediment from said interior through said bottom drain to provide a drained tank;
- checking the pH of the drained solution to determine whether additional treatment with acidic treatment solution is necessary to clean said hot water heater tank;
- and flushing said drained tank with water for removal of any residual acidic treatment solution to provide a clean hot water heater tank.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.