Tankless Hot Water Heater Maintenance

The past few days we've been having water pressure issues, mostly in the mornings. Not being real sure of the cause I had called a local plumber that everyone in my community speaks very highly of and asked him to come out and take a look. I was concerned that we had a leak somewhere or it was an issue with our hot water heater. By the time I got home the water pressure was back to normal but I kept the appointment because I figured it wouldn't hurt to have him come out and at the very least do maintenance on the water heater.

We have a Noritz tankless hot water heater that runs on natural gas. It's very energy efficient and up until now the only issue we've had with it was due to the water savers that are in every shower head and faucet. (Link to post from November 2015.) It's recommended that the unit be drained and flushed periodically, particularly in areas with hard water but we'd never had it done. The plumber checked the unit over including removing and checking the inline filter that was clean. (I failed to get a picture of this.) Because we've never done it I went ahead and paid him to flush and descale it.

The process involves turning the valves to isolate the heater from the house plumbing and then attaching hoses to circulate a descaling solution through it pumped from the bucket. Once it was finished the water was fairly clean indicating not much in the way of build up. Still there was no way to know for certain until it was done and we shouldn't need to do it again for a few more years. From what he told me though if you live in an area with hard water, this is something that needs to be done more often, at a minimum once a year. (Refer to your heater's owner's manual as needed for guidance regarding your particular unit.)

As for the water pressure issues, the plumber wasn't able to find anything that might be causing it and it being back to normal by the time he came out made it all the more difficult. My next door neighbor texted me to say he was having the same issue at the same time we were leading me to think it might be an issue on our county's end with the water supply. They sent someone out to take a look as well but didn't find anything either so for the moment we're in a wait and see mode with that.