Increasing hot water flow

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Just like every other snake oil product. Designed to fool those with a smattering of knowledge. Ie, dribble.

[bof]

Years back I had a kettle that scaled up with hard limescale which had to be cleaned out on a regular basis, one day the element blew, I changed it for a new one and after that the kettle never scaled up again, just had soft powder scale deposited in the bottom that could easily be washed out. I guess there may have been something about the em field the replacement element generated that changed the way scale formed, I don't know, but the effect was dramatic.

[dennis]

It is far more likely that the surface treatment of the element was different. It is quite possible to stop the crud sticking to the element by changing the physical properties. There are even domestic goods that claim to do that (Samsung washer for instance).

There is no evidence that magnetic fields at the levels you can get to in the home have any effect on scale.

[bof]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

There's clearly a many variables that changed in this case; my recollection is that it was also the walls of the kettle that remained scale free, not just the element.

[James Noble]

A Plumber said the following on Tue, 9 Nov 2010 at 21:24:53

I always though that scale in the HW tank would be a problem until my 25 year old HW cylinder required a new immersion heater. My plumber friend removed the old immersion (no problems unscrewing it BTW) with a warning about what to expect in the way of scaling in the cylinder and stood there scratching his head when he saw that there was no scale at all anywhere in the cylinder.

The HW cylinder is usually heated by the indirect coil from the boiler and has always been set at 60C. He muttered something about scale not forming until you reach 65C and finished the job a happy man. I was happy too!