The first and most important thing to know is that flushing your water heater is not an undertaking you should attempt alone, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. The risk of injury or the potential for doing something wrong and wrecking your water heater or home (or both) is too great. Still, some homeowners want to know how the process is handled. Here’s an inside, step-by-step guide to how a professional plumber will flush your water heater.
Step 1. Turning Off the Heat and the Water Supply
The experts can’t flush the water heater while it’s still running. The first step they take is turning off the heat and cutting off the water supply to your water heater so that new water isn’t flowing into the tank while they’re working.
Step 2. Relieving Water Pressure
Once the heat and water are off, you’ll notice that the plumber will head over to the nearest faucet and turn the hot water on. Why? Doing so relieves some of the pressure in the tank so that it’s able to drain as desired.
Step 3. Connecting the Hose to Drain the Water Tank
Your plumber will then attach a hose (you’ll find that any standard hose will do) and run it out to a safe space where water can pool, connecting the other end to the water heater. Then, they’ll open the drain valve to start letting the hot water flow out. This is a fairly long process, and you may have to wait for up to half an hour to get the tank fully drained.
Step 4. Flushing the Tank
After the tank has been drained, your plumber can start the process of actually flushing it. To do this, they’ll keep your drain valve open and turn the cold water back on for a few minutes. While some of the debris that has built up in your water heater over the past year will have come out with the initial drain, the flushing helps to get any lingering sediment and rust out of the tank. Thankfully, this should only take a few minutes, and you can see when it’s done because the water will run clear.
Step 5. Refilling and Activating It
Once everything is clear, it’s time to take out the hose and close the drain valve, turn the water back on, wait until you hear the hot water running in the other room start running normally (it should still be on from step 2, and it will sputter because air has been introduced to the water supply), and then restart the water heater.
Flushing a water heater is a must-do task that will keep your water operating at its best, and it’s easy to understand how the professionals do it. Use this step-by-step guide to see how it works, then call your local plumber once it’s time to flush your water heater. When you need water heater services in Washington, DC, contact F.H. Furr.
