How To Flush A Hot Water Heater To Remove Sediment

[Music] hey everybody today we're going to talk about how to drain a hot water heater now this is really important to do about once a year because sediment can build up inside your hot water heater and it kind of collects all down at the bottom of the tank and eventually turns into this big deposit that's turns into like a solid concrete mass at the bottom of your tank this reduces the efficiency of your tank and can actually shorten the life of the tank because that deposit is is very corrosive and it can actually eat right through the metal of the tank and before you know it your tank starts leaking and it's an emergency middle of the night replacing a hot water heater situation so by draining the tank about once a year you can stir up all that sediment and flush it out so that it doesn't collect in the bottom of your tank and cause your problems down the road it's a pretty simple process so let me show you how to do it so the very very first thing that we want to do is turn off our heat source this applies for both gas and electric i'll show you on how to do it for gas because that's what i have here if it's electric then you should just go find the breaker where your hot water heater is plugged in and flip that breaker or simply unplug the hot water heater from the wall for gas one though the simplest thing to do is just to change your temperature setting all the way down to either pilot or vacation mode if yours has one like that this will prevent the burner from turning on as you were flushing the tank with the cold water and if you forget to do this you have a very real possibility of completely ruining your tank because that burner will turn on and try and heat up an empty tank which can actually melt the metal and cause your tank to fail so very very important first step turn off your heat all right now that our heat source has been disabled the next step is to locate your cold water supply valve for your hot water heater and to turn it to the off position mine happens to be up on top of my tank and it's just a simple ball valve that you rotate just like that now the next step is to connect a garden hose to the drain spigot at the bottom of your hot water heater you want to put it on nice and snug but don't over tighten it as you can damage the threads so now we're almost ready to drain the hot water but there's one last thing we have to do if we were to open this valve now since there's no water being allowed into the tank anymore it would act like a straw with your finger over the end of it and no water would flow out so we need to allow some air to get into the system to do that we just open up a faucet anywhere in the house on the hot water side only and this will allow air to travel in from the faucet side so that the water can drain out of your tank okay with our cold water supply turned off and a faucet opened so that we can let air into the system we are ready to open up this valve on my particular hot water heater this valve is the kind that only takes a quarter turn so that the valve gets in line with the drain pipe now when you open these valves if you don't hear any water flowing or air being sucked into the system then you might have a backflow preventer valve installed somewhere in your in your plumbing and as a result opening a faucet is not enough to be able to let air into the system so that this can drain properly so instead of a faucet open we're going to use our pressure relief valve to allow the air to get into the tank now you want to be careful with these because they are an important safety feature of your hot water heater these are here because if the pressure inside your tank ever gets large enough that the tank might possibly explode then this relief valve will open up and let all that extra steam and hot water out so that your tank doesn't explode you shouldn't play with these too often or too much and you want to make sure that it gets seated correctly when you're done with this job but to open it is very simple you just grab this little arm right here and bend it straight up and then you'll immediately hear the air is getting into the tank and the water is flowing out the bottom so while the water's draining it's a good idea to come and inspect what's coming out of your tank in my case the tank has only been installed for a little less than two years this is the first time it's been flushed and the water that's coming out is quite clear this will take quite some time to drain be patient and wait until the entire tank is empty one quick word of caution this water is hot don't let kids or dogs or friends or anybody come and play in it while it's draining just let it drain out into the street don't put it on your flowers don't put it on your garden this is scalding and it can damage things or hurt somebody so be careful all right so it's been draining for about 15 or 20 minutes and the tank is basically empty at this point but the drain is such a gentle process it doesn't really agitate any of that sediment at the bottom of the tank so before i'm completely finished i'm going to do a couple of things i'm first going to open up the cold water inlet for about 15 or 20 seconds which is going to spray a whole bunch of cold water down to the bottom of that tank and agitate whatever is down there i'm then going to let it rest for 15-20 seconds let some of that drain out and i'm going to repeat that process three or four times [Applause] and you can see maybe it's a little difficult to see but there is some particulate that is coming out with this water that's draining out of the hose now that i've done that one flush so i went and grabbed a bucket so that we could see some of the sediment a little bit better this is a clean bucket and you can see there's little flecks in there in the water that are kind of swirling around these are all coming directly off the bottom of my hot water heater tank that's the stuff you're trying to get out of your tank and that's what's built up over the last year and a half of us living in this house [Applause] yeah there's still definitely sediment coming out of the tank so we'll keep flushing until we get a bucket that's clear [Applause] all right so i've flushed it four times now that way and let's see how our water looks now that looks very clear there is one little visible spec floating around in there that is significantly better than it has been all right so we're done with the agitating kind of flushes and we're ready to move on to the next step all right so at this point the tank is pretty clean there's very little particulate still coming out and most folks at this point we just fill the tank back up turn off all the valves and business as usual there's one more step that i'm going to take just to make sure it's as clean as i possibly can get it and that is i'm going to fill the tank completely back up with cold water and drain it one more time by filling it back up completely i'm going to agitate even more of that water that's at the bottom of the tank and that's the whole point of this exercise to try and scrub out the bottom of that tank as well as i possibly can so i'm going to fill it all the way back up one more time drain it all the way one more time and then fill it back up for regular use so to fill it all the way back up i open up the valve on the top of the heater and then i'm also going to close the valve on the drain hose and i'm going to close my pressure relief valve just like that all right i don't hear anything flowing anymore into the tank so as soon as you think it's full open that valve back up at the bottom and close the valve at the top and then we've got another 20 minute wait while this drains again all right so my bucket looks pretty clean let's go ahead and check to see how this water coming out now looks this is after a complete refill of the tank i see a few small specks in there but it's really not bad so i'll let this tank completely finish draining and then i'll close the hot water heater back up and refill it completely all right so my tank is now completely empty and i'm going to close the drain valve and i can remove the hose next i can open the cold water inlet one more time and that'll start to fill the tank now i've still got my pressure relief valve open because as the tank fills all that air that's in there now needs to go somewhere and i'd rather go out the pressure relief valve than into my plumbing now you do need to use a little bit of caution here because if you just leave that valve open and fill up your tank the water level will come all the way up to the height of that valve and come right back out that pipe and down all over your floor so i'm not going to leave it open for very long i'm going to stand here and i'm going to listen and as i can tell that the tank gets closer and closer to full i can go ahead and close this relief valve and then i'll have very little air in my tank okay the sound has changed a little bit i no longer hear the water trickling all the way down to the bottom of the tank it's it's filled somewhere better than halfway and i'm not going to risk it i'm going to go ahead and close this pressure relief valve now so that no water comes out down the bottom all right with the pressure relief valve closed again now i can set my thermostat back to my desired temperature the burner will turn back on underneath the tank and i'm done and finally the last step is to open the hot water valve on any faucet in your house to make sure all the air gets bled out of the system once the water is flowing normally again you can shut it off and you're finished all right so that's it it's not a very difficult job to complete but it is an important job that you do need to do to extend the life of your hot water heater flushing it out about once a year is all it really takes to keep that sediment from building up and ruining your tank and making you run into an emergency at some point down the road when your tank finally fails so flush it once a year and your hot water heater will give you plenty of hot water for many many years that's it for this one i hope you've enjoyed what you've seen i hope you've learned a little something if you did go ahead and hit that subscribe button down wherever it is and as always thank you very much for watching [Music] hmm [Music] you

Channel: AmplifyDIY

Views: 4,261,075

Keywords: flush hot water heater, flush water heater, flush hot water heater sediment, flush hot water heater gas, cleaning sediment from hot water heater, flush a hot water heater, drain hot water heater sediment, how to flush your water heater, how to flush a water heater, cleaning water heater sediment, cleaning water heater, water heater, water heater maintenance, drain hot water heater, hot water heater maintenance, hot water heater, cleaning out sediment hot water heater

Id: hs5N7HyDUWo

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 25 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/bab5871]

Great info. You should have seen the shit that came out of our old water heater... nasty orange sludge. Will be doing this at least once a year now.

[u/iiiiiiiiiiii]

I bought a house in 1980 with a ten year old water heater. Never once drained it until 1996. Decided to just replace it with a new one. That one from 1996 is still cooking, ive never done anything at all to it. I'm in central florida on municipal water.

[u/scarabic]

Extremely good explaining! You have a talent for this. Thank you!

[u/cyber_rigger]

Also, don't use copper hookup lines. They seem to cause electrolysis that corrodes the tank.

[u/20pennySpike]

Great vijayo, man! Keep yer dick in a vice!

[u/MatmosOfSogo]

Do you have instructions for a cold water heater?

[u/H0rridus]

Well done, thanks!

[u/Tweak454]

Great video. The best I’ve seen on this subject!

[u/the5nowman]

Fantastic video! Gonna be doing this + anode rod tomorrow while my wife’s out of town.

One question. You opened the faucet at the beginning. When do I close it again?