Yes, YouTube has many instructional videos. Yes, I have watched them. But, you may have some tips for me?

Water heater (note, it is NOT a HOT water heater as many of you have) is about five years old. Never drained. Original anode. 50 USG. Rheem. Gas heat. Sits about 18 inches off a garage concrete floor. Would need a 50 foot hose to reach the street.

Looking for the SF Optimum Way for maintenance.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
Yes, YouTube has many instructional videos. Yes, I have watched them. But, you may have some tips for me?

Water heater (note, it is NOT a HOT water heater as many of you have) is about five years old. Never drained. Original anode. 50 USG. Rheem. Gas heat. Sits about 18 inches off a garage concrete floor. Would need a 50 foot hose to reach the street.

Looking for the SF Optimum Way for maintenance.

Are you completely draining the tank or just flushing sediment from the bottom ? Either way, if you're completely draining the 50' hose seems to be a no-brainer and to flush since it's 18" off the floor use a five gallon bucket ?

One CAUTION. I suggest shutting off the water heater prior to opening the drain valve, regardless of flushing or draining. WHY YOU AXE...if the drain valve won't close you will be turning off the water heater and turned off the incoming cold water....plan ahead for failure.

Change the anode while you’re at it. It’s a 1 1/16” socket, loosen it before you drain the tank because they have a gorilla tighten them in the factory. I’ve had to use a 3’ cheater bar to get more than one loose. Also don’t use teflon or pipe dope when putting a new one in-it needs to contact the metal threads to complete the connection to the tank metal

An impact wrench can help loosen that anode bolt significantly. Our 4 year old anode rod was completely used up, so it was time.

Is your water heater showing a problem? No hot water or just some hot water? Is there a recommended lifespan for anodes?

Anodes deteriorate at odd rates depending on water. I check mine every March when I also flush it. Then I write on the tank to keep track. I had to change out the first one after being in the house for two years. Since then I think the city changed how they clean the water they get from the river and the new anode is going strong for three years now.

Be aware that there are different anodes for different areas in the US. Your local Ferguson will carry the right mix-but don’t buy it from them they are wildly overpriced. Order one on line and it’ll be much cheaper. There’s a bump welded on the top of the anode that tells what kind they are. But I don’t remember what they are off the top of my head.

I drain mine once a year by turning off the water supply, opening a faucet, running a hose from the tank which is in a crawl space up to the outside then down a slope, opening the tank's valve and just letting it syphon.

As far as changing the anode good luck. I've never been able to remove one. So after installing my last tank I picked up a replacement anode and while the tank was still new (just filled and a couple days old) I tried to remove it and couldn't budge it with a 1/2" breaker bar. My plan was to coat the threads with anti-sieze paste so I'd be able to remove it in a couple years to replace the anode. Called a plumber friend and tried again, him using a 3' cheater on the breaker bar and me holding the full tank to keep from turning. No luck the tank just turned in spite of my best effort. So I took the spare anode back and A. O. Smith can replace the tank when it fails in 5-6 years.

I'm probably an outlier here, but as much as I'm a fan of preventative maintenance, in 37 years of home-ownership I've never drained my hot water tanks, or had them drained, and never had any failures.

About half of that time was on municipal water and half on water from our house's private well. About half-and-half electrical vs. gas/propane heated.

Buy a female hose thread cap. If the drain valve leaks screw the cap on.

Be careful with the drain petcock if it’s plastic. I watched one break off in Dads hand and the water all over the kitchen. It had gotten brittle.

That was a fun day.

If you drain to clear the sediment out, be careful where you put the discharge end of the hose. I wasn’t thinking the first time I drained mine and just put it in the driveway. Had a big white stain from the sediment for months.

I drained my water heater of sediment last month. I was hear a lot of knocking after running the hot water, so figured there was a bunch of stuff knocking around. Bought a 50ft non-expanding hose from walmart (all we had were the super lightweight expanding hoses on hand), stuck the end in a bucket to to catch the muck, opened a faucet, set the heater to pilot, shut off the water intake, and released. No biggie. I watched this video in prep.

First time I drained my water heater, I replaced the crappy plastic factory drain valve with a piece of brass pipe, a full port ball valve and a MIP to garden hose adapter.

Much better flow than the stock drain valve, much more durable and when this water heater dies, I'll swap this setup onto the replacement.

Turn it off, turn off water, run hose, open tap at bottom, toggle air relief valve at top, wait until empty.

Close tap at bottom, open water supply until you get water out of the air relief valve, let it set for a minute or so, give it another shot of water to get rid of any bubbles, close air relief valve, restart pilot, and let heater come to temperature.

When I moved to Alaska, I bought an 8 year old house with a 50-gallon water heater in garage (obviously a heated garage). There was a floor drain so I thought I'd drain the water heater that first spring.

Hooked up a hose to the drain, shutoff hotwater, shutoff hotwater, and opened the relief valve. I opened the drain valve and it just trickled out and it took 2+ hours. It coughed out some nasty calcerous debris, but I think a faster flowrate would've pushed out more debris.

Future years, I let it drain and opened the cold water with drain open to try to flush more debris.

It worked good enough that I sold it 5 years later without having to replace the water heater.

I drain mine every fall. In fact, I plan to do it this weekend.

Turn gas to pilot/vacation. Hook up hose to water heater and run it down to the gutter at the street. Turn off water supply to heater. Open drain using the quarter turn ball valve. Open pressure relief valve to allow in air.

It then usually takes ~45 minutes to drain fully.

When hose slows to a drip/trickle, turn on the water supply for ~15 seconds before shutting it off again. When hose slows to a drip again, repeat. Do that a few times, to flush any remaining sediment.

Then close pressure valve. Close drain ball valve. Turn water back on. Turn on hot water faucet in the sink furthest from the heater.

Once furthest sink finishing gurgling/spurting and flows normally, shut off sink and turn the heater back up to normal temp setting.

Did mine last month. Turn off water supply, turn control valve to pilot position, hook up hose, open up pop off valve, open drain valve. When finished draining, close pop open water supply and let it flush. Don’t forget to turn control valve back to the on position.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Change the anode while you’re at it....

A while back I thought I was going to be Mr. Proactive and change the anode. Somehow I have the water heater which has has the anode attached to the intake valve. I would have to fully remove the soldered copper water supply line to replace the anode.

I have seen hard water debris built up inches deep, over the heating lower element, but that was always hard mineral well water systems.

For most people it simply isn't necessary to drain / flush... unless you have some hard or funky water.

If it hasn't been done in a very long time you will likely have an issue with the drain valve.. as mentioned earlier have a hose end cap ready just in case. Have had many service calls to fix this very issue.

Changing the anode... The anode will almost always outlast the tank. Almost never needed... They sell new anodes that are segmented so in can be put in where a rigid one piece may not fit due to the overhead height restrictions.

Spent 20+ years in my first career doing residential plumbing and electrical service work. We averaged replacing a water heater once a week. Yes I tracked it because I kept the heater inventory we stocked. That's over 1000 I have personally hands on replaced... (Not including all the new installs for houses my Dad built as a contractor.) Out of that number removed I probably could count on one hand the ones that had used up the anode or had a significant amount of debris in it.

The water can't drain unless air can enter to replace it. Don't open the pop off valve for that, it may not reseal. Opening nearby faucets will usually work, if all the water is off.

I have seen some things...