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I've been wanting to build one of these to see if they really work. I read all I could find about them and decided to jump right in.
1st, I found an empty plastic 55 gallon drum and cut about the top third off:
Next, I built the sacrificial anodes. I used #7 rebar w/ #3 bands. I had these at work, but they are easy to come by. Pretty much anywhere that sells rebar will have these. There was lots of conflicting info on the internets over just how to do this, so I just kinda averaged everything out and came up with this. I welded everything together, since tie-wire will rust away fairly soon:
I had some bare #6 stranded copper wire in the shop, so I split it in two, you know, unwound it so I had two thinner strands. I think pretty much any copper wire will work, and as far as that goes, I'm not even sure it has to be copper. It just needs to conduct electricity. At any rate, I wound the copper wire around the upper band on my anode system:
Place the anode inside of the drum and fill with water. This was the hardest thing of the whole project-getting the hose out of the shed and and all unrolled and thawed out. It is worth noting here that the solution must be a base. I'm sure that there is some optimal PH level, but I couldn't find what it is. Most of what I read said to use Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda. No consensus of how much to use, either. Most said 2 teaspoons to the gallon. A few quick punches of the calculator and I settled on half of the box:
Part 2 to follow.