Brown water keeps returning to hot water heater
Several months ago, our hot water began turning to a reddish brown sort of color. Fill the bathtub up, reddish brown. Fill any of the sinks up, reddish brown. We're city water (Dallas) and the gas hot water heater was installed in 1994.
I got on this excellent board and learned all about draining the hot water heater to "push" out any sediment and other foreign materials that may have settled at the bottom of the hot water heater. And it worked... for about a day. So I did it again, and it worked... for about another day. Now the water is back to reddish brown.
I guess I could keep on draining the water heater, but I suspect I have a deeper problem. I'm wondering if any of you experts out there might know what's going on inside of my water heater to cause the reddish brown water to keep returning, even after I flush the water heater repeatedly. Do I simply need a new water heater? Or do I have a problem in another part of the house?
Thanks everyone. I appreciate it.