Garn anode rod service bulletin

[curtis]

I installed my garn 1500 january 2014 and used it the rest of the winter. During the spring i shut down the boiler and did my spring/summer maintenance on it, cleaning the flue and checking it over. I found the anode rod to be completely eroded and a bunch of debris from it laying on the bottom. My water samples came back as perfect and so I replaced the rod around october of 2014. When I checked it this past summer I found the rod gone again. Well I just got a e-mail with a technical service bulletin stating they may have a problem with the anode rods. I read through it and it sounds exactly like what has happened with mine. Here is a link to the tsb in case some of you garn owners didn't get it. http://www.garn.com/wp-content/uploads/general/tsb/TSB-AnodeRods.pdf

I am thinking it may be best for me to drain my garn and get all the fluff and chunks of anode rod out of my boiler.

 

[TCaldwell]

I went through 2 sets of those rods during that time period, finally Mike from precision chemical told me to stop using them. Previous to that the set that came with the boiler lasted 4 years. Hopefully there will be a discounted price on the ''new'' replacements to offset the costs of the overseas ones.

 

[mike van]

I just checked mine about 10 minutes ago, and it too is in pieces on the bottom - Could be the white slimy stuff that was plugging my Y strainer at the start of the season? Anyway Curtis to answer your question, I am going to drain mine to clean it. Not what I want to do, just for the time it takes. When mine was new it sat a good week between the pre-clean & regular water, I got a fine rust in it that has since all settled out, but I can see it. Just trying to clean that old rod will have it all floating around again. So, when the ocean level rises a little in a few weeks, it's not el nino, it's my 1000 gal of water - Hey Tom - How've you been?

 

[curtis]

I think I may just wait till spring to drain and clean mine. I want to move the boiler another foot from the back wall when I do and I'll have to redo some of the plumbing. Not something I want to tackle now that it's 40 degrees outside. I hope that stuff won't hurt anything laying on the bottom.

 

[TCaldwell]

Hi Mike, all is well here, i'm going to wait to drain /clean mine after dectra has the anode rod situ straightened out.

 

[sjfrench]

I've got the same issue. I purchased my Garn 2000 in October 2013. So the rods were faulty back then as well. I looked at the pics from my salesman, and it was textbook with my experience. The rods were swollen and nearly impossible to get out. Slimy stuff on the anode rods and on the water level gauge. Left white debris all along the bottom of my tank.

I've got a good and responsive salesman, and at first he felt that waiting until Spring would be an acceptable option. However, he has recently encouraged me to go ahead and drain it now. He felt uncertain about the implications of waiting.

Unfortunately, last month, I broke my neck in two places in a mountain biking accident. Draining, cleaning and refilling the Garn with a broken neck will be a brutal process. In fact, I have no idea how I'll do it. I'll probably have to hire someone.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point. Feeling a bit of "damned if I do, damned if I don't".

 

[bpirger]

So from the anode rod service bulletin, sounds like Dectra is now saying no rod is needed to be used....So for those of use who have gone through a rod every six months since installation (2010 my case), and have had perfect water samples every six months, does this mean we are not suffering any electrolysis issues, most likely?

 

[TCaldwell]

It sure would be nice with isolation or grounding to eliminate the anode rods, hopefully they can come up with a solution.

 

[jebatty]

Is Garn contacting all owners to make sure they know about this issue? I know one owner who never was notified except found out through this post. What about others? If you drain and refill, does Garn pay for the new chemical treatment? What about clogged/impaired heat exchangers, gunk in the plumbing and emitters - are these issues too? How do you get that stuff out? What is the stuff? What impact does it have on the Garn, plumbing, emitters? What about other system damage? If anode rods are not needed and were not needed, is Garn refunding the purchase price for all anode rods purchased but not needed? Why did it take so long for Garn to notify of the problem?

 

[heaterman]

Well here's what I know.......

*Garn is sending the TSB to everyone on their mailing list so if you're a Garn owner and not signed up, this is one reason you should be.
I do not know if they are contacting owners directly who have taken the time to register their units.

*Garn does not pay for the replacement chemical or any failures related to the Chinese anodes.

*The dissolved anode material is not corrosive to the tank but a layer of it left on the bottom could eventually cause some under deposit type corrosion.

*If you look into your tank and the water is cloudy you have issues other than the anode going on that need to be addressed. The dissolved anode will not make the water milky looking.

My best advice for getting the faulty anode material out would be to do the following:

A: use a small net with a long handle to get the bigger chunks out.
B: If you have sediment looking powder laying on the bottom of the tank, I would do the following.
1. obtain a small low volume pump (under 5 GPM is what I would recommend) something like a drill pump or a little bigger???
2. attach a flexible hose, then about a 6 foot piece of light tubing like conduit or copper tube to reach down into the tank
3. Using that assembly, reach down to the sediment and suck up as much as you can. Either discharge what you get out of the tank or pass it through a standard water filter and back into the tank.
4. After that by all means pull a water sample and send it in to Chemical Mike and Precision Chem who does the factory testing.
C: Keep tabs on the Garn website to see how to proceed going forward. I know that anode use in their boilers is going to end and they are in the process of developing recommendations for grounding that will eliminate the need for them in the first place. They will have a TSB on it when they reach a satisfactory and correct solution for protecting from stray current. (which is all the anode does in the first place)
D: Once the sediment of dissolved anode is removed, monitor your water chemistry as usual.

These are my thoughts only and may differ from what the factory recommends.

I have replaced 1 failed circulator in an installation we did locally here out of my own pocket. If you own a Garn you purchased through me I'll take care of you the best I can. These would be owners in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario and Illinois since 2013. We are kind of on our own here.

 

[bpirger]

Hi Steve:

Great to have your input on this....thanks for sharing!

Has everyone had these anode rods disappear over a ~6 month time period? My rod has been replaced every six months, which I have assumed indicated I have a stray current issue. I don't know how as I have measured no potential difference from the Garn to the service ground that powers the controller and the Garn barn.....have tried various things and configurations...nothing has made a difference.

So my question now is.....does this mean there isn't a stray current problem and it is just these crappy rods? Surely if every installation with these rods (though some have claimed they last years here in the past) is replacing every 6 months....we likely don't all have issues....

Obviously some could have a problem and others not. Is there any data on the longevity of these crappy anodes across the past couple of years? Mike at precision chem has always stated my water is great....

I certainly see a pile of "shards" beneath the anode rod in the tank from the chunky disintegration. I also noticed some paint in this area on the bottom of the tank (on the inside), as if it was intended to protect the steel from the accumulation.....

Thanks,
Bruce

 

[heaterman]

Can't answer that for you from here Bruce. I'd guess that if you are seeing pieces of anode in the tank it's likely the crappy anode itself.
Anodes in lots of applications that have had verified stray current problems, do not fall apart in chunks. They will pit until there is nothing left but I can't recall seeing one in pieces. (very common on older dairy farms locally)

Best advice would be to get an electrician involved and have him sniff around your main panel, any subfeeds that may be connected to it and the circuit that Garn itself is running on. Shouldn't be terribly expensive and then you'll know for sure. A good sparky will also be able to make recommendations about what action has to be taken if he does find something.

I remember years ago watching every cow in an old stanchion barn kick the milker off whenever the water pump ran in the house 150' away. That's the kind of stray current an anode is supposed to deal with. It is made to absorb the tickle instead of the shell of your Garn, or your water heater or your OWB...............whatever the case may be.

In my old house which still had knob and tube wiring in the attic, we kept getting a tickle off the bath faucet. I measured 6 volts from the faucet to the ground in an adjacent outlet. The electrician traced it down finally but I remember it was a bugger because it was intermittent.

 

[jebatty]

Best advice would be to get an electrician involved and have him sniff around ....

This might be good advice, but finding stray voltage is not necessarily easy and then isolating circuits causing the stray voltage is not necessarily easy to fix, plus it could be very costly.

There are two problems here. The first is the Garn anode rod disintegrating, not just pitting like Heaterman mentions. IMO this problem is a Garn anode problem, which appears to be a defective product problem, and this problem raises many issues which have been mentioned. Dealing with these issues is independent of the second problem.

The second problem is stray voltage which an anode rod is intended to mitigate. Stray voltage is complicated, may be caused be the utility, may be caused by wiring at the property owner location, or both. It is not necessarily easy to identify or easy to fix. For a long time utilities followed wiring procedures which easily could cause stray voltage at service locations. In our area and only fairly recently has the utility (and or code) required separating ground and neutral circuits from the site service location to the utility transformer, and also (and I don't know if my utility does this) isolating the primary and secondary neutrals on utility transformers. Failing to separate these can be a cause of stray voltage. There may be other causes as well.

Stray voltage traditionally has not been considered a problem at homeowner locations because the voltage is so low that it cannot be felt or result in injury from electrical shock. The voltage may be like that from a single flashlight battery. But stray voltage has been and can be a big problem on farms, industrial and manufacturing sites, at hospitals and at other locations with sensitive electronic equipment. That is another discussion.

 

[DaveBP]

Is this the sort of problem that an isolation transformer could eliminate?

They are used on boats for that purpose, to eliminate bad shore power issues.

 

[gregwhs2000]

I've been advised that the magnesium debris can be very corrosive to any steel without the epoxy coating that most Garn's have in some areas of the tank bottom. If your unit is like my WHS2000 built in summer 2014, then you have debris all over the tank as well as hazy water. I'm not going to chance it and will be draining the tank. Hate doing it, but I don't feel there is a choice. My anode rods were completely gone with anything in contact with the water having fragmented or dissolved right off the steel core of the rod.

Anyone else feel like Dectra is leaving us high and dry on this issue? Regardless of the reason for the defective product, shouldn't they step-up and do the right thing by those that have to purchase hundreds of dollars of new chemicals? It' a pretty clear line of liability in my eyes.

I'm also concerned that the grounding issue will be an additional expense for which Dectra will just say, "here's the cost of the gizmo you need ... place your order before you burn or we are not responsible for damage to your unit." That's assuming they even provide a solution in the near future. There's reason to be skeptical, since this issue has been in play for longer than they've admitted to.

 

[heaterman]

Good question but I am not enough of an electrician to give a definitive answer.

My gut level intuition tells me it's probably a different circumstance. Whereas a boat is totally isolated except for the shore power electrical connection, A Garn, water heater or other "land based" system will be connected at many different levels electrically and through the piping attached.
Many times a Garn or an OWB will be connected to one circuit at its location while other devices may be served off an entirely different circuit or even a different entrance panel altogether.

 

[mike van]

Has any other boiler mfg. ever put an anode in their unit?

 

[heaterman]

Has any other boiler mfg. ever put an anode in their unit?

I have run across a few various OWB's with anodes in them. I seriously doubt they are ever looked at and are likely in the same shape.
And if they did fail on an OWB there would be no possible way to get the junk out.

 

[Robert V]

So just to be clear, can the defective anode rods cause an increase in the need for chemicals to the water? I have been putting in $100 worth of chemicals every year since I have had my whs2000.

 

[mike van]

Robert V - I would have to guess no, as my mine is laying on the bottom of the tank & i've never had to add chemicals since initial batch - But, i'm no chemist either, just a guess.

 

[DaveBP]

The marine industry has been plagued with contaminated anode rods (often called "zincs" by boaters) that crap out way too fast. China sourced, of course.

I think in China one can take a college major in forging quality control documentation.

 

[heaterman]

So just to be clear, can the defective anode rods cause an increase in the need for chemicals to the water? I have been putting in $100 worth of chemicals every year since I have had my whs2000.

You sending samples to Mike at Precision Chem Robert?

 

[bpirger]

So Greg made the comment the problem has been around longer than identified...? Is this a known? I bought my Garn in 2010 and installed in 2010. Every 6 months since, I've had to replace the anode rod. I believe all of them have been the same, since 2010, and have all "shedded". I looked at some DHW anode information and observed pictures of a pitting (normal) anode rod. This is clearly different than the Garn for sure.....not even close.

Meanwhile during that time, Mike at prec chem has been saying my water chemistry is great. I added a bucket of stuff in 2014 I think? Once every 4 years? I have no problems with that. Rods twice a year at $75 a pop add up, especially if they are doing more harm than good.

So, does anyone know if these rods would "fluff" apart if they were sitting in pristine water? Is it not an electrical issue causing pitting, but rather some purely "contaminated rod" issue leading these things to just fall apart over time?

On one hand there are Garns 25-30 years old still heating away....and my guess is they have never seen an anode rod replacement....if water chemical monitoring. On the other hand, with $12K plus spent on the Garn itself....it is an enormous investment and if it corrodes due to ineffective anode rods....I'd be rather pissed indeed.

 

[TCaldwell]

Wonder if dectra could source good anode rods and distribute as a temp measure to limit liability while they are working on a permanant fix. I guess the our responsibility at this point has been documented by chemical Mike's water sample reports. I wonder why the change in anode sourcing to begin with, kind of like the bad relays in the old control boxes. hopefully they keep us in the loop periodically as to progress.

 

[maple1]

Sounds like there are a few Garn owners here who only found out about this from this thread - which seems to imply they could be doing better on the keeping in loop thing in the first place.