How to Flush your water heater.

How to Flush your water heater:
Before flushing the tank you should turn of your electric supply off in the circuit breaker panel just in case their is some strange problem. (elements will burn out if left on without water) Their is no need to turn the gas off for a gas water heater.

To complete this job, attach a hose to the water heaters bottom drain. Leave the inlet water supply valve on. Simply attach the garden hose to the faucet or spigot, and place the other end in a area where the hot water will not damage the lawn, and simply open the water heaters bottom valve.

Your houses water system will provide the power to push the existing hot water and sentiment build up out of the tank. How long this will take will depend on the amount of rust, and sediment inside the tank, this process may take less than one minute to a few minutes to complete.

Once this is done and your water should be flowing cleanly, close the tanks faucet valve. Remove the hose from the water heater drain. You are done.

TANK FLUSHING REASONS:
It is recommended and a good idea to flush a water heater tank yearly. The reasoning behind this is to flush out sediment and rust particles that will naturally settle and accumulate on the bottom of the tank.

Built up sediment from inside a water heater.

Sediment is found within almost all supplies of water more to some degree. Rust comes from the tanks interior, do to normal tank ageing, the piping within your houses own water piping system, those of the main water supply from the streets piping system.

Cloudy water:
Chances are the tank needs to be flushed. Try flushing the tank and note the results.

Another possibility is the faucet heads. Remove them and clean them. While each is off the faucet, run the hot water to flush the piping system. Allow the hot water to run until it comes out clear. Then reinstall the aerators back onto the faucets.

It’s always possible the tank is internally rusted out beyond the ability of flushing the tank & flushing piping lines out to correct the problem. A new tank would then be required.

The piping system and lines within your structure may also be all or part of the problem. Only your licensed plumber would know if the piping system was the direct cause of the problem and or if the tank is the problem.

Noises inside the tank: Water heaters that make noises or sounds like they are percolating is caused by excessive sediment deposits on the bottom of the tank.  Which means the heat must transfer through a layer of sediment before it can heat the water, which causes the water to actually boil close to the bottom of the tank, and causes more energy to be used than should be.

Tank flushing usually but not always resolves the problem. Tanks that have not been flushed yearly may have an excessive amount of sediment which has already baked onto the bottom of the tank which can not be removed.

Older tanks also acquire this problem despite frequent flushing and tanks used in high sediment water supplies. If flushing does not resolve the problem, their could be another problem with the water heater’s dip tube.  The dip tube is a plastic tube inside of the water heater on the cold water supply side of the tank. It’s job is to take the cold water that enters the tank to the bottom where the heating source is. These can break down over time, in that case replacing the water heater is the solution.

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