I heard from a lady friend the other day that you’re supposed to drain a gallon or two of water from your gas hot water heater every year or so. My question is where do you drain the water from? There is a faucet on the side of the unit about 10 inches from my basement floor. This seems the right place.
BUT, there’s also a pipe that comes out of the hot water heater about one foot from the top of the heater. This L-shaped pipe goes toward the basement floor and has a flip lever at the top of the pipe.
Am I (actually my son) supposed to drain BOTH pipes? By the way, I’m not sure how my son will drain the L-shaped upper pipe because the pipe opening (bottom) is only about two inches off the floor. It’s made of plastic. Can it be cut shorter so he can place a bucket underneath it?
I don’t understand why you would have to do this. You drain water from the tank every time you turn the hot water on. If you use a lot of hot water in a short time, you will use it all up and begin to get cool or cold water. I have had the same gas water heater for fourteen years, and have never “drained” water from it the way you say.
The thing at the top is a pressure relief valve. You can test it by giving the handle a quick flip. All you need to see is that water comes out of the hose, you don’t need to drain a significant quantity through it.
Iyamity, the link provided by Desmostylus is a good one. When the water stands in the tank, sediment settles out of it. Using the hot water doesn’t get to the sediment, because the water you’re drawing off the tank by using it is coming from the top of the heater. The cold water is fed into the bottom (even though the supply pipe comes in the top, it extends to the bottom of the tank, inside); that may stir up the sediment a bit, but it settles out again very quickly. The only way to get rid of the sediment on the bottom is by using the drain faucet that’s mounted low on the tank.
By now, unless you have an exceptionally clean water supply, you’ve probably got about a foot of sand in the bottom of your water heater. That cuts down on the efficiency of the unit, and, depending upon the nature of the sediment in your water, could cause it to rust through and rupture.
OK, anecdotally speaking only, it has been told to me by HVAC/Plumbing repair people that if you don’t routinely drain the tank, then trying to start doing it after 10-15 years of non-draining can often lead to leaks. Especially from the drain faucet itself. This might make sense, as I suppose debris could get caught in the gasket or valve and hold it open a tiny bit, or make an uneven sealing surface. My water heater did just this to me, in fact, and has a very, very slow drip now as a result. So, just take note that it is a possibility…
Nothing last forever. Old water heaters make good smokers.
In other words, you’ve got a live flame at approx 5lbs of pressure.
There’s a pressure relief valve at the top that shoots through that ell to the floor. Leave that alone. At the bottom of the tank is “the bottom control valve” that flows on gravity. A fifty gallon tank is fifty gallons of emergency water supply. You can flush a lot of toilets with that build up.
Anyway, whats the big deal? Do you smell something funny? Those people add something to the natural gas so if it’s leaking you would know it. Smells skunky.
Anthracite, go to your hardware store and get a new valve, soon.
My experience has been that a leaky valve just leads to more problems with the water wicking back into the cabinet and rusting it away.
Thankfully, it’s an easy job, too. Turn off the heater, close the valves above the tank, hook up a hose, and drain the tank. Once you’ve done that, you can just unscrew the whole faucet (grab the whole thing with a big wrench, and turn counter-clockwise), remove it from the tank, and put in a new one. Unlike most plumbing fixtures, you’ll find that it isn’t soldered in place, doesn’t have a bunch of weird gaskets, and so on. In short, a pretty quick fix.
I drained mine once cause it said to do so in the manual, but I never could get the drain valve water tight after that. However, read the instruction manual that came with it or call the number on the side of it & talk to them about whether its necessary or not.
I’ll consider it. I’ve changed my own toilet, re-built an engine or three, and am normally pretty handy with everything from screwdriver to acetylene torch. However, my heater has a casing that blocks access to the tap, and will require some significant disassembly to get to.
Thankfully, it’s been leaking for 3 years without an issue. Since I want to get a much larger heater anyway for more hot water capacity (Fierra and I would like a huge Roman-style bath to have slippery hot lesbian sex in…with bubble bath), I likely will wait until I replace the heater entirely.
I looked at this top pipe and noticed that, if it did suddenly release hot water, there is no drain whatsoever near the hot water heater to contain the released water.
Shouldn’t my basement have a drain nearby just in case such an emergency release occurred? The thought of 50 gallons of water flooding all over my basement doesn’t sit well with me. (Nor does an explosion, in the absense of this top pipe.)
Well, the thing is that the pressure relief should never open, so the lack of a drain shouldn’t be an issue. Drains cost money (especially in basements, where sump pumps may be required), so the builder will often cut this particular corner, secure in the knowledge it’s very unlikely the homeowner won’t even note its absence.
Yes, it could flood your basement… if the relief was to fail open it would be a continuous supply of water NOT just 50 gallons!
The same if the tank started leaking.
My relief valve drain goes outside the house…
I have a pan under the tank piped to another drain.
A basement would require a sump and auto pump to prevent flooding.
Using hot water from the tank draws from the top of the tank… ** not** the bottom.
LOL… if you lived where I did in TX you would know why you should drain the solids from the bottom of the tank. The water supply was heavy in dissolved solids. When water is heated the solids stay in the tank… after time they build up on the bottom… efficiently goes down because they act as an insulator… the bottom of the tank becomes much hotter… in time the excess heat causes a hole to come in the tank. :smack:
We were lucky to get 6 years on a tank before the bottom was leaking… that was with routinely draining the solids
The same thing in operation of high pressure boilers… it is routine to give the commerical high pressure boilers a bottom blow every 4 hours… even when using condensate for water!
Sorry, you are wrong! The lack of a drain can be a serious issue.
I had lived in a new house for about 2 years. The **relief valve failed open **. The drain was piped to the outside of the house.
We were gone from home only a few hours but it was flooding the back yard. I would hate the thought of that much water in my house!
There was nothing wrong with the hot water heater… I just replaced the relief valve.
My water heater is over 25 years old and has never been drained. And we have REALLY funky water. Like, it’s kind of yellowish-brown all the time. I wouldn’t bother with it.
This is a bit like telling someone that, because you’ve never changed the oil in your car, but have miraculously gotten away with it, they should never bother with oil changes. Bad advice.
The instructions that come with every tank-type water heater, and that are repeated in every “how-to” article about taking care of a water heater, all say that you should draw a gallon or so off the bottom of the tank periodically. It’s easy to do, it improves the efficiency of the water heater, and it reduces the chances of a major leak. Why would you “not bother with it?!”