so something you want to do every year
as a homeowner is flush your
conventional tank water heater if you
have one most houses do have tank water
heaters like this 50 gallon bradford
white which is a very good brand and
many of these units can last up to 12
years if properly maintained but one of
the things that shortens water heater
lifespan is sediment buildup see most
tap water contains minerals like
magnesium potassium and calcium it's
suspended in the water we drink and
shower in and it's so diluted that we
can't detect it but when that water sits
undisturbed in a tank water heater for
hours at a time the heavy minerals
gradually fall to the bottom of the tank
where eventually they coagulate and
collect like a hard slurry these mineral
deposits can do two bad things in there
the first is that they make the heater
less effective the heating element on
these units is just like a big gas stove
burner it heats the tank up from below
like a pot but when mineral sediment
builds up on the floor it acts as an
insulator reducing the heat transfer
into the tank it's less efficient and
the second bad thing is that these
minerals are corrosive they'll actually
eat away at the lining of the tank
eventually destroying it water heaters
do have anode rods that draw these
minerals acting as a sacrificial element
but they can't get it all and some
sediment will build up in the tank over
time so to deal with this the best thing
to do is to flush your tank annually and
to show you how to do this i teamed up
once again with brent clifford of eco
plumbers in hilliard ohio brent is a
master plumber working with the best
plumbing company in the central and
dayton ohio areas brent is going to show
us two ways to flush his system properly
and unlike most of my videos where i do
a scripted voiceover i'm going to let
brent do the talking here because he's
such a good teacher and i want you to
hear those little insights from a highly
accomplished tradesman i'll just chime
in here and there to round out the info
all right with that said here are two
ways to flush your conventional water
heater
the water here that this customer has uh
obviously came from my company um we use
bradford white which is a professional
grade product
um and what we're going to do is we're
going to hook up our our host to our
boiler drain assembly right here it's
just like hooking onto a garden's figure
yep exactly same thread
same operation
get that guy on there and then what
we'll do
is there are two methods to flushing the
water here one is just using gravity
to drain out naturally and the other is
to use utilizing the incoming water
pressure okay to manipulate the hose and
get most the sediment out be it that way
which for a older tank i would recommend
using water pressure so that way you're
not putting a whole lot of stress on the
tank as far as uh it's tempered because
you won't need to
pull the tank off or empty it out all
the way and so you're going into a
floor drain right here
so we'll pop this guy into an emergency
floor drain so i removed the uh the
connection from the pan just so that we
have access to put our hose down in
there okay gotcha so i got my
screwdriver here this is a slotted screw
so we'll need to get our slotted
screwdriver attachment
so now that we're at this stage
yep uh heater is set to oh
where we usually leave it so apparently
for our customer here this this water
temp was good for them
so now we're gonna do our power flush
method so i can sit here and what i'm
going to do is i'm going to hold on to
this end of the hose
make sure everything's going to make
sure it doesn't jump out of the out of
the trap here
and i'm going to rotate this guy 90
degrees
and sometimes i like to just leave it
just barely cracked okay so that way i
can hear if there's sediment
the pitch changed which tells me there's
something in there
so we'll open it up all the way
let it run for a few seconds so what's
doing is the cold water is actually
running down to the bottom of the tank
stirring up that sediment and forcing it
out here because there's no hot water
running in the house so it has nowhere
to go but out this hole okay
so we'll go ahead and shut this off for
a second
let that sediment settle
and i want to check the temp of my hose
as well make sure i'm not getting uh
it's getting slightly warmer yeah
but as we run water it's going to get
nice and hot
you see that's like a 90 degree ball
though
yeah it's a this is a uh this is a 360
ball valve
but 90 degrees we'll turn it off and on
okay so this when the slot is this
direction it's full on yeah when it's
this way it's off doesn't matter which
way you turn it doesn't matter which way
you turn it so i can turn it the
opposite direction
off
oh
i could feel that thing kicked oh yeah
because there's a lot of pressure in
there yeah and so that's the city's
pressure basically pushing down through
the water here correct so as we
manipulate this and let it settle yeah
um she has had her water here flushed
recently so there's not a whole lot in
here if any gotcha
that's just a little fine stuff because
i haven't barely cracked open
and you can hear it coming through
and then a lot of times if it's an older
style heater that we don't have the
luxury of this type of valve i'll use my
hand on the hose
and i'll kink it and i'll be able to
feel it passing through
and i'll open it
close it
and i'll typically do this until the
water heater and the water coming out of
my hose runs cold gotcha
so we'll turn it off so yeah and you can
see the pressure actually released from
the hose yeah
so then what we could do okay so that's
essentially the power flush method we
left the cold water valve on and use the
incoming pressure to force the water in
the tank out through the spigot at the
bottom the flowing action stirs up
sediment and kicks it out but the tank
stays full the whole time and the burner
element stays on in other cases you may
want to use the second option the
gravity drain where we're going to empty
the tank out completely and let it
refill but keep in mind if we do this we
want the burner elements turned off
because we don't want them heating up an
empty tank that excess heat can warp and
damage the metal of the unit so for an
electric tank you can most likely just
flip a breaker at the start for gas
units you want to turn the gas speed
dial down to pilot or possibly away or
vacation mode this will leave the pilot
running so you don't have to re-light it
later but it won't create dangerous heat
then later on when the tank is full
again you can just turn the dial back up
to your desired temp so keep that in
mind as we start to show our second
method the gravity drain okay so what
we'll do is we'll shut the valve off to
the cold yep which is designated there's
a stamp on the top of the heater that
tells me that that's the cold line
if i didn't already know roll of thumb
facing the tank and it's facing you cold
is always on the right hand side okay
uh so this is our second method that
we're just yeah this is the second
method so this is the gravity drain
method gotcha so gravity drains we've
got this all set up for the gravity
drain yep so what we'll do is we'll open
up this uh valve down here now that we
have the water feed off to it
and there will always be a valve to open
yep of some sort whether it be plastic
because it came from a big box store
yeah or some type of brass mechanism
down here if it came from some kind of
program so we've got it open
and of course we don't have any water
flowing through it because we have it
air locked right now because there's no
valves on in the house gotcha so what
we'll do is we'll have our customer turn
on the hot water at their kitchen faucet
and it'll start releasing this water out
of this tank
so
so as you can see i've got it on and
it's actually sucking air
and then we'll do the hops here as well
so that's about it that's just cold and
then that's hot yep
cool
now that we have
so now that we have our valves open
upstairs yeah um
we have our valve open here but our cold
water shut off to the tank yeah we can
now check
our hose here
is gravity draining
the interior of this tank out
you're not gonna be able to see any
sediment flowing through here with your
naked eye you can always put a tube sock
on the end or some type of wire mesh
lint trap yeah and it'll collect that
sediment so you can see exactly how bad
your tank was said about it okay
um what does sediment look like um it
could range it could be like a bacterial
slime or it could be hard chunk stuff
similar to this up here yeah what'd you
call it to the to the corrosion here
from the electrolysis
it'll look like it'll be like really
fine grit
or it could be large chunks of grit um
it just depends on how long it's been in
there and established and collecting
with itself okay
some heaters depending on the water
quality in the area may recommend you do
it more frequently than 12 months okay
so right here we've just i just heard it
pass through so all the water out of the
hot side of the whole whole home system
is now drained out
it is now now we're going to work and
it's going to tank okay and so that hose
is still just working over time oh yeah
so i've got this hose so just to keep
the noise down i have it in in the
actual water of the track but if i lift
it above the trap line
you can see so right now we've done
gravity drained it so what we're going
to do is get it set back up to refill
the tank okay so this right here is the
valve so right now this slot so that's
on yep now we're off okay
so now we're set in the off position yep
then we'll come up to the top of the
tank we this particular water here is a
full port ball valve some may have a
gate wheel okay um but we're gonna go
ahead and reestablish water so we're
gonna do this nice and slow so we're
gonna introduce water slowly
and then upstairs we'll leave a faucet
open or some type of device on the hot
side because as this displaces the water
and fills this tank it's pushing the air
back out of the system up through that
faucet
okay go ahead
so while that's filling upstairs you've
heard the faucet going um as the air is
displaced out of the tank you're going
to hear a whoosh here in a few seconds
there it goes
and that indicates that the tank is now
completely full of water again so then
when we go back upstairs after
disconnecting all of our equipment
we'll go ahead and make sure there's no
air left in the lines at the faucet
and then everything's
done the house is full of water at this
point
so that's it two methods for flushing
conventional water heaters i really want
to thank brent and eco plumbers for
helping with this video once again you
won't find a better teacher or a better
company anywhere if you're in the
central and dayton ohio areas call them
for your plumbing needs and if you're
interested in becoming a plumber on
their team check out eco plumbers
university their amazing in-house
training program as always thanks for
watching be sure to check back soon for
more videos coming up and please
consider subscribing and hitting that
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moment we post something i'm ethan james
with the honest carpenter i'll see you
next time
[Music]
you