Aqua Hot 400D low water pressure

[alank]

In post #33 you said there's a slight flow, now you say the there's total blockage after inserting the Redylime, if you can, reverse the connections to the coil and pressurize from the opposite end.

Trying to auger the tube out is a near impossibility. You can only go in about 16" before you hit a 90* bend, then go into the loops. The only thing that might go in there is a small stainless steel flexible cable, chucked into a drill to rotate.
Looking at the AquaHot picture, I would estimate the coil tube would be at least 50 feet long, so it would take a 25' to even go half way, and going around all the loops just won't happen.

You might set the AquaHot up on the stand so the connections are on the bottom. Have a pan under and run the rotating steel cable in as far as possible to see if anything comes out, may give an indicator of what's in there, then a small tube in to flush anything out that's loose.

If you can get any flow through at all, I would try to set a pump up so it picks up out of a container, pumps through and drains into the container. This way you can circulate fresh fluid through and observe the flow as it opens up.

Good Luck

You said you had a softener, but had to replace the resin. My experience with that is the resin wasn't cleaned often enough and became loaded with minerals. I got my softener from a guy in Sun City that didn't take care of the softener, it didn't work and just gave it away. I had to regenerate 3 times to clean the minerals from the resin so it would start to function. In our time in the Pheonix area, my 10,000 grain softener would need regeneration about every 300 gal of water and I have a water meter in line. How often did you regenerate your softener?

[DieselPushy]

Originally Posted by Douglee25

Do you have the coil vertical? If not, I would do that so the air bubble rises to the top. Otherwise, you may never get good contact with the scaling. Another option is trying to rode out the coil with a stiff piece of wire. I'd probably give that a go too.

Yes, I have the coil vertical so that way the liquid falls by gravity and the air and gases produced by the descaling go up. I've been using various gauges of steel cable. I can go in about 3-4 feet on each port. It does become difficult the deeper you go and eventually comes to a stop. I'm sure with all the bends and the friction accumulating may cause that.

[Douglee25]

Assuming it's actually doing something, you'll likely have to swap the fluid out after a couple hours. Once it reacts, it's done.

[DieselPushy]

Originally Posted by Douglee25

Assuming it's actually doing something, you'll likely have to swap the fluid out after a couple hours. Once it reacts, it's done.

Agreed! You can tell when the liquid turns more clear and stop bubbling.
See photo below of the gasses being produced by the chemical reaction of the calcium breakdown.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1yY4Q_gyydE

[Douglee25]

Originally Posted by DieselPushy

Agreed! You can tell when the liquid turns more clear and stop bubbling.
See photo below of the gasses being produced by the chemical reaction of the calcium breakdown.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1yY4Q_gyydE

Oh that looks great! It'll break through in due time. Great way to monitor progress with the clear tubes.

[alank]

Just a note if you haven't figured this out, Having the tube ends pointing to the ground isn't going to get any water out of the coils because those tubes go to the top end of the coils. Having the tubes pointing up also won't get any water out.

You're need to have it horizontal and rotate the coils (Aqua Hot) to empty each loop as the horizontal tube end comes around to the bottom. This will be a rather long process but is the only way the fluid can exit the coils. It will also make a difference which way you rotate the unit, one direction to get fluid out the intake tube and the opposite direction for the output tube.

Have a good look at the Aqua Hot picture and follow the structure of the tubes, then I think you'll better understand what I'm trying to explain.

I do agree, fresh cleaning fluid needs to continuously be cycled into the blockage. Just leaving dead fluid set there won't do much and keep in mind that you're working inside a 1/2" tube so circulation won't be much.

[DieselPushy]

Originally Posted by alank

Just a note if you haven't figured this out, Having the tube ends pointing to the ground isn't going to get any water out of the coils because those tubes go to the top end of the coils. Having the tubes pointing up also won't get any water out.

You're need to have it horizontal and rotate the coils (Aqua Hot) to empty each loop as the horizontal tube end comes around to the bottom. This will be a rather long process but is the only way the fluid can exit the coils. It will also make a difference which way you rotate the unit, one direction to get fluid out the intake tube and the opposite direction for the output tube.

Have a good look at the Aqua Hot picture and follow the structure of the tubes, then I think you'll better understand what I'm trying to explain.

I do agree, fresh cleaning fluid needs to continuously be cycled into the blockage. Just leaving dead fluid set there won't do much and keep in mind that you're working inside a 1/2" tube so circulation won't be much.

I completely agree with what you are saying. And yes, I did figure that out yesterday after studying the solid model photo of the internals. Tomorrow, I will be installing the vacuum pump with tank trap to evacuate all the air out of the system while the other end of the coil is connected to the descaler. That vacuum will pull in the descaler in all the voids of the blockage. I'll post photos tomorrow.

[brobox]

This is not meant as a rub in any way, just sharing my experience hopefully to prevent your problem from happening again, or to others. While spending the winter in the SW region, my water softener resin was shot, dark brown instead of orange. Instead of regenerating over and over hoping for the best, my water store https://watermedicofcapecoral.com/ told me to change the resin as they do on our bad well water homes. They sold it to me in bulk, they use 50 pound bags, for next to nothing. A couple of good videos on YouTube and it was a 15 minute job for fresh new resin.
Living in an area like yours, I would change my resin annually along with regenerating every 300 gallons, not to have to go though the coil cleaning. Orbit sells an inline flow meter, also one that will shut off at the set gallons. Also the first one I have seen posted ever that bad. I learned something, thank you for sharing "what can happen" and the chore it is to fix it.