Flush that hot water heater!

It really doesn’t matter where in the country you live, you WILL have some deposits of lime, scale, grit, etc. in you hot water heater.  And if you’re lucky enough to have some bacterial buildup in it, you’re going to be glad you flushed it out.

I recommend to my customers to flush their hot water heater tanks at least once per year.  If you have bad odors from the hot water, you’ll want to flush more often.  The bad odors are related to bacteria in the tank.  They are harmless but stink something fierce.

OK so if you’ve never flushed your hot water heater before, you will likely want to see a professional do it at least once.  If you are a fairly “handy” sort of person it will be easy to do.  Hot water heaters come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but the basics of flushing are all the same.

Step one, turn off the heating elements if its electric, and if its gas you’ll want to turn off the pilot and heater by turning off the gas flow.

Step two, hook up a garden hose to the spigot on the bottom portion of the tank.  Most of them are plastic, so do be careful not to be rough with the connection or the handle.

Step three, take the end of the hose out into the yard or driveway.

Step four, open the spigot on the tank and let it flow as fast as it can.

Step five, flush for at least 10 minutes.

Step six, close the spigot and disconnect the hose.

Do not turn on the heating system for at least 1 hour.  This allows the chlorine in your water supply to work on any bacteria that might be present in the tank.  If you have your own water well, or do not have chlorine or other disinfectants in your water supply you can immediately turn the heating system back on after you’ve closed the spigot.

Step seven, after one hour go to the nearest hot water tap in the home to the heater, and flush the hot water only side for a minute or two to be sure the water is clean and clear, as well as free of color.  Be sure to turn the heating system back on.

There you go, a simple DIY project that can help prolong the life of your water heater and improve its water quality.

Until next time…