Do it Yourself: Re: [DIY] Water Heater Flush

07 January 2015

Re: [DIY] Water Heater Flush

A lot of what accumulates in the water heater tank is gritty in nature. When you open the flush valve the gritty material can get under the seal in the valve. It may not in your case but it is extremely inconvenient when it does happen. When a tank is fresh and new there wouldn't be any problem but when they get older they tend to get crusty.
I live in Southern California, the water here is very alkaline and has a lot of mineral content, it builds up very thickly but tends to chunk up inside the valve and doesn't let the valve seal when you try to close it back up, same with the over pressure valve.
In areas where the mineral content is less or the water quality is different than here may have different experiences.
Opening the valves can cause problems of a different nature. But usually those valves can be fairly inexpensive to replace should they leak after draining the tank.
Steve

On 1/6/2015 12:11 PM, Frank Ruggiero frankruggiero@me.com [DoIt_Yourself] wrote:

Can you flush it by just opening the spigot? Why would it leak if you did that? Just curious. I probably should do my water heater and furnace. Does it preserve it's life?

I'm new to this.

Thank you.

Frank

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 6, 2015, at 3:00 PM, "Steve Wilson virtualwilz@yahoo.com [DoIt_Yourself]" <DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I have tried to flush water heaters. Nearly every time I tried to do flush one, chunks of mineral got stuck in the drain valve. They leaked after that, same with the pressure valve. Once its been opened it tends to be hard to re-seat. So I just leave them alone. My first experience there was seeing my Dad try to drain his water heater. It was a leaker after that until they replaced it. I had similar experiences when I tried it.
I've been thinking about replacing my 30 gallon gas water heater at home. It had just been replaced before I bought the place in 1989. I've never touched it. It still works perfectly.
The water heater we have at work is electric. We tried to drain it and it leaked ever since, same with the pressure valve on it. It leaked after it was opened from then on. I just replaced that water heater a few weeks ago. We went without hot water there for some time because it leaked so badly when it was heating.
I have seen water heaters that were so full of water deposits they were nearly as heavy empty as they were full of water.
Don't know much more than that. Just felt worth a comment.
Steve

On 1/6/2015 10:33 AM, Ron Johnson l0c0l0b0@hotmail.com [DoIt_Yourself] wrote:

I just flushed out a water heater and got alot of mineral deposits. I know I'm supposed to do it every 6 months, but it has slipped by me.

But that brings up a question: it's electric - so other than having a tad more space for water, what is the purpose? With gas heaters, being heated from below, mineral deposits definitely shorten the life of a heater. But does it really make a difference on electric?