Water heater is one of the most important appliances in your home, and on top of that, it is expensive, the one that you potentially consume water, and wash your body from, so you want it to one, last long, and two, well, to have it clean for your daily routines. There are some easy steps you can go through to extend a life of your electric or gas water heater tank to perform a regular annual (or every six months if you have hard water) scheduled maintenance yourself. I am going to start with having a licensed plumber do it if you do not feel comfortable to do it yourself, so let’s start with the steps you need to do in order to service it. (these instructions are the same for each water heater tank, but please refer to your specific water heater to find all the items.)
- Before starting you have to turn off the poser to the water heater at the source, so go to your breaker panel and turn off the breaker that supplies the power to the water heater.
- if you have the gas water heater, make sure to shut off the gas valve.
- Make sure to check all the pipes around the water heater, to see if there are any leaks.
- leaks around the water heater may be the sign that the water pressure in the tank is too high, if that’s the case, call licensed plumber.
- At this stage you can start flushing out all the dirt and mineral deposits that could be at the bottom of the tank.
- Close the cold water valve that supplies the cold water into the water tank.
- Connect a garden hose to the bottom of the tank and put the other end of the hose preferably outside where the water can drain from the tank.
- CAUTION! – the water in the tank may still be hot so please use cautioun and make sure you placed the draining end of the house some place safe and the water can drain.
- At this point you can go ahead and open the water heater drainage valve to start flushing out the water along with all the dirt and mineral deposits, the timing varies depending on the tank size, but on average it takes about 20 minutes to get empty.
- to make it easier for the tank to drain, open one of the foists so that the air can get into the tank.
- Now you can open the cold water valve (that you closed in Step 4) to let the running water through, this will help flush out all the remaining dirt that may still be there, you want to keep it open up until you see that you have clean water coming out of the hose.
- Once you see the water coming out of the drainage hose is clean, close the water heater drainage valve and you can remove the hose.
- you can keep the cold water flowing into the tank until you see a water running in the foist that you opened in Step 6.
- At this stage you can turn on the breaker to let the electricity into the tank.
- turn on the gas if you have gas water heater and follow the procedures to have it started since it is gas.
To fully complete the maintenance make sure to follow these steps as well. (please note that these steps will require a licensed professional)
- Every water heater tank comes with the temperature and pressure relief valve that needs to be checked periodically to make sure it is working correctly. It serves as a safety mechanism that allows the water heater to reduce its pressure automatically if the pressure caused by high temperature is too high for the water heater ratings. So to perform the check, place an empty bucket under the pressure and temperature valve draining pipe and slightly lift the lever, this should open the valve and water will drain down the relief pipe.
- if there is no water released then you have to call a licensed plumber and have it replaced immediately.
- If you have the water heater tank that has been installed for more than three years that you should have a licensed plumber to inspect the Anode rod, and the plumber will let you know if the Anode rod needs to be replaced or not.
With that, every home owner should be doing it regularly to make sure you have clean water heater tank that will last long time.
