Important Pluming Element: Your Hot Water Heater

May 25
09:19

2012

Antoinette Ayana

Antoinette Ayana

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Maintaining your plumbing is one of the best ways to ensure that clean water is constantly entering your home to be used by family and friends! Here are some simple steps to allow your hot water heater to work to it's maximum capacity.

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One of the most appreciated and overlooked plumbing elements in any home is the hot water heater. Whether it's gas or electric,Important Pluming Element: Your Hot Water Heater Articles it provides you and your family with soothing warm baths in which you can relax at the end of the day, scalding hot water to sanitize the dishes in your dishwasher, a variety of temperatures to be used in your washing machine, and fresh hot water to keep your hands clean throughout the day. But for most families, the water heater is taken for granted until it breaks and there's no more fresh hot water. Instead of allowing sediment to build up, causing smelly water and cool showers, take some time to do annual maintenance on this important pluming device!

The Working of a Hot Water Heater

You don't need to know much in order to perform yearly maintenance on your water heater. It's a 30 to 60 gallon tank which holds and heats water. There's an intake for cold water and an outlet for the water once it's heated and needs to be used somewhere in your home. At the bottom of the tank is a heating element. A dip tube directs the newly added, cold water down toward the heating element, so it will heat faster. There's also a sacrificial rod or anode which draws corrosion to itself and prevents the walls or bottom of the tank from rusting out.

Annual Maintenance: Draining Your Hot Water Heater

Draining this plumbing fixture is a relatively easy procedure and should be performed at least once a year to flush out any sediment buildup that's accumulated on or around the heating element. Excessive sediment is one of the primary causes behind rotten egg smelling water and a decrease in the water's heat.

- Before you begin draining the water, be sure you turn the heating element off. For electric heaters, you'll find a switch to flip off. For gas heaters, you simply turn off the gas supply.
- It's a good idea to let the water cool for several hours before you attempt to drain it into the basement drain, buckets, or out a door.
- When it's time to drain the water, close the cold water intake valve (so that no more water pours in as you drain the existing water!), and open a hot water faucet somewhere in the house. The open faucet will let air into the tank as you drain the water out of it.
- Finally, attach a hose to the hot water outlet so the water will drain to a basement drain, out a door, or into several buckets. Then open the drain valve!

Annual Maintenance: Flushing out Excess Sediment

Once you've drained the tank, close the hot water outlet valve and open the cold intake valve to allow the heater to fill about halfway or so. Then drain it once again. Keep this process going until the drained water is clear, clean and free of sediment!

Yearly maintenance on your water heater is an important step toward keeping this plumbing element working efficiently year after year!