4 ms·

This is what is in your hot water tank right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s If your

by MertsA 8y ago

This is what is in your hot water tank right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s If your water heater is malfunctioning and not heating up all the way to 140 degrees but it's still heating up to e.g. 100 degrees then it's a breeding ground for listeria. The temperature difference changes the solubility of minerals and salts dissolved in it as well as changing how quickly everything even slightly volatile leaches into the water.

berlinstartup 8y ago
Big Deal. You realize those minerals are present in just about any water you can imagine, right? They are almost completely harmless or even beneficial. The guy in your video is just scaremongering in order to sell something.
slededit 8y ago
Paradoxically if that is in the tank it means the water coming out must be purer than cold since the contaminats are left in the tank - on average.
- MertsA 8y ago
  In terms of dissolved minerals sure, but there's two important distinctions to make. The tank isn't just accumulating deposits, there's an anode rod inside that's designed as a sacrificial element to protect the tank itself from corrosion. That anode rod gets consumed over the course of a decade so while it's not much, it is being introduced into the water. Also those deposits provide a porous substrate for bacteria to grow on and the heat will help things along.
logifail 8y ago
>> This is what is in your hot water tank right now Does anyone think the inside of a ~20 year-old cold water feed pipe is going to look shiny and "clean"? Go take an electron micrograph of the bacteria on your skin, or use a microscope to look closely at the living things inside your bed, in your sofa, or on your pet. Then take a deep breath, check the causes of death tables if you really have to, and remember that - given we're all intelligent humans - none of these "eww, gross!" things really matter in the overall scheme of things.
- MertsA 8y ago
  Yeah the cold water side will look dramatically better. It certainly will have deposits accumulating but it's not going to be anything close to the amount of deposits that form inside of a water heater. Heating up hard water will chemically alter the water going through it. It's not that those calcium carbonate molecules were in solution before, it's pretty insoluble in water, it's that they were chemically formed when the water was heated. I'm not suggesting that those deposits are going to kill you or anything, but if things go wrong and the water isn't heated enough those deposits make a great substrate for harmful bacteria to grow. Ideally you shouldn't use hot water for consumption even though normally it's safe. It also tastes different than cold water because of the change.

by MertsA 8y ago

berlinstartup 8y ago

Big Deal. You realize those minerals are present in just about any water you can imagine, right? They are almost completely harmless or even beneficial. The guy in your video is just scaremongering in order to sell something.

slededit 8y ago

Paradoxically if that is in the tank it means the water coming out must be purer than cold since the contaminats are left in the tank - on average.

MertsA 8y ago
In terms of dissolved minerals sure, but there's two important distinctions to make. The tank isn't just accumulating deposits, there's an anode rod inside that's designed as a sacrificial element to protect the tank itself from corrosion. That anode rod gets consumed over the course of a decade so while it's not much, it is being introduced into the water. Also those deposits provide a porous substrate for bacteria to grow on and the heat will help things along.

logifail 8y ago

>> This is what is in your hot water tank right now Does anyone think the inside of a ~20 year-old cold water feed pipe is going to look shiny and "clean"? Go take an electron micrograph of the bacteria on your skin, or use a microscope to look closely at the living things inside your bed, in your sofa, or on your pet. Then take a deep breath, check the causes of death tables if you really have to, and remember that - given we're all intelligent humans - none of these "eww, gross!" things really matter in the overall scheme of things.

MertsA 8y ago
Yeah the cold water side will look dramatically better. It certainly will have deposits accumulating but it's not going to be anything close to the amount of deposits that form inside of a water heater. Heating up hard water will chemically alter the water going through it. It's not that those calcium carbonate molecules were in solution before, it's pretty insoluble in water, it's that they were chemically formed when the water was heated. I'm not suggesting that those deposits are going to kill you or anything, but if things go wrong and the water isn't heated enough those deposits make a great substrate for harmful bacteria to grow. Ideally you shouldn't use hot water for consumption even though normally it's safe. It also tastes different than cold water because of the change.