How to Flush a Water Heater the RIGHT WAY - DIY Plumbing

[Music] how to flush a water heater that's an easy thing to do today we're going to show you how and we're going to do something different we're going to do two different water heaters the first water heater we're going to do has not been flushed in two years and it's just on the normal portable water system later we're going to do another one now we may not do it in the same video it depends on how everything goes today but i want to show you the difference in a house without a filtration system and an anti-scale system and one width now this water heater is a house that we installed the water heater two years ago we're gonna do a flushing what i've done i've taken a bucket cut some holes in it and we're gonna run water right through a white cloth that way we can see what kind of sediment we pull out of the water heater just after two years then later we're gonna do a comparison we're gonna go to a water here that we haven't flushed in two years but it has a water filtration system and an anti-scale device now it's hot out here it's almost 100 degrees i know i look good right now but this may not last long so anyway let's get started now we got what we need here so we're going to get in here get everything hooked up and get ready to go all right let's get booties on get ready go in and get everything hooked up all right so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go ahead and get ready to hook the hose up so i'm going to pull out a pair of channels just so i can snug it up and a screwdriver to turn the valve but first i want to show you what i love about the bradford white water heaters is they have a metal valve here and i like that because you don't have any problems now this is a plastic replacement that they sell at the box stores and the problems that you run into is the way these things are designed now on these other valves you still gotta have a screwdriver to open it and close it but when you get it down there and look you just don't get quite as big of an opening as i really prefer and these metal valves tend to open up really well and give you a good flow when i flush a water heater i like to hook it up leave the water pressure on and flush it out i don't drain out the water here the reason being is i want as much pressure as i can the way these bradford white defender series are designed the inlet tube lets water push out around and actually rents the bottom of the water heater out so when i'm trying to flush it to get the sediment out i want full pressure because i want it to blow and rinse it so when i've got this valve open full blast it's actually giving that sediment room and a place to go all right here we go so what i've done here i've actually drilled four holes in the bottom of this bucket now the reason i did that is i want the water to be able to come in through the top go through my filter come out the bottom and never fill the bucket up so it's not filling it up or anything like that what i want to do is just see how much sediment do we actually get out how much calcium how much magnesium are we getting out of one of these water heaters like i said this one is two years old so watch up oh here it comes i don't really like to let these run 10-15 minutes a lot of times what i'm doing if i've got a filter like this where i can actually look and see what's coming out whenever i spray in the same spot i'm actually seeing particles hit it and then some actually get pushed through it because like i said this is just like a rag like a loose rag like a t-shirt and as the wetter it gets the more it's stretching out and the bigger the holes are becoming but this is still quite a bit of sediment because this is just the big pieces all the little pieces like sand they're going through this and i understand it but i like to give it about 10 or 15 minutes until i can't see anything at all coming out of the water not a bad way to do it if you look on these metal valves these brass valves you can actually see that the screwdriver slot goes across the valve when it's closed and in line with the valve when it's open that's how you know if it's open and you should be getting full water flow if you've ever flushed the water here before let me know what kind of sediment did you get i've seen people pull out handfuls of it and i've seen just a little bit like this this really isn't too bad these are mainly the big pieces like i said this is more like a t-shirt and i can actually look and see through it right now it's like a screen it's gonna let through all the sound size particles things like that but the bigger stuff as you see it held on to now imagine over the years the inside of your water heater will fill up with this sediment it will coat the inside of the tank it will coat everything on the inside if you've got an electric water heater it'll coat the elements it's very beneficial to flush a water heater if you've got a tank list we've got another video where we actually show you how to flush a tankless water heater go check that video out we've actually done a full video on how to flush a tankless water heater so even if you're thinking about getting one you may want to watch that video just to see what the differences are anyway let me know how this has worked out for you because it helped your water heater last longer i'm roger wakefield lead ap the expert plumber i'll see you in the next video if you don't get flushed

Channel: Roger Wakefield Plumbing Education

Views: 428,712

Keywords: water heater flush, how to flush a water heater, flush water heater, how to flush out a water heater, how to flush a water heater of sediment, how to flush a water heater tank, water heater maintenance, how to flush a water heater step by step, how to flush out a gas hot water heater, electric water heater flushing, how to flush a water heater video, how to flush your water heater video, diy water heater flush, diy plumbing, flush hot water heater

Id: PtGCfBWBjiE

Length: 5min 4sec (304 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2020