Video: How to Flush a Water Heater

NOVATO — Host, Sarah Rutan: The simplest way to increase your water heater’s operating lifespan is to flush its tank annually. Today we’re in Novato with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Daniel Gagne of Benjamin Franklin Plumbing to learn how this is done.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Daniel Gagne: Hi, my name Daniel Gagne, and today I’m going to show you how to flush a water heater. The reason we flush water heaters – and it needs to be done at least once a year – is because there’s a lot of sediment in the water and sediment tends to sit at the bottom of the water heater tank. And if you don’t maintain your water heater or flush it yearly and take a look at certain components, your water heater is going to become less and less efficient. It could even start leaking from the base.

So, the first thing that you need to do – something a homeowner can do very easily themselves. They’ll need a garden hose. Usually, you tend the garden hose and you extend it all the way to the outside in the garden or in the driveway. You need to identify the water shut off, which is usually on top of the water heater. In this case, it’s all the way up here.

So, first thing to do is to shut the water off. And if you have what we call a ball valve, then the ball valve needs to be perpendicular to the pipe. So, now it is actually in a shut-off. And then, you take the garden hose. You’ll need a pair of channel locks. And at the bottom of the water heater, there’s usually going to be a drain valve. And here’s your drain valve over here. This one doesn’t have a handle, it has a little slot, so you can put a screwdriver and turn it on with a screwdriver.

So, I’ll attach the hose to the drain valve. Just snug it up a little bit with my channel locks here so it doesn’t leak. And then, I’m going to turn the water on, then let the water heater flush. So, now you can hear the water flushing through the hose. You want to make sure that your hose doesn’t have any kinks in it, so you want to go in the driveway or outside to make sure the water is flowing freely.

One thing to also keep in mind is that your water heater after a while is going to become air locked. So, you can either turn the temperature and pressure relief valve here on the on-position – so, you let the water heater drain. It’s now been draining for about 10 to 15 minutes. And you want to see the color of the water. At first, it’ll come out kind of milky and it’ll have some sediment in it, and then eventually it kind of clears up. Once the water comes out clear, then usually you’re pretty much good to go.

So, when you’re done, then you could just restore and just shut down everything. You could shut your drain valve off there in the off position. Turn your T&P off, or shut the faucets in the house if you turn any faucets in the house. And now, we can go ahead and remove the drain hose. And we’ll turn the water back on by turning the valve parallel with the pipe. And again, same as when we flush our water heater, when we refill the tank, it can also become air locked, so you have to leave a faucet on the hot water side inside the house until water comes out of it so that there’s no air that gets stuck in the tank. And once the water comes out of the faucet, you turn the faucet off, and you’re good to go.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.