| Key Steps for Draining a Hot Water Tank | Description |
|---|---|
| Why Drain Your Hot Water Tank? | To winterize homes, especially for seasonal properties like cottages, to prevent damage during colder months. |
| First Steps to Drain the Tank | Shut off the power to ensure safety, and close the cold water supply to the tank. |
| Locating and Connecting to the Drainage Valve | Find the drainage valve at the tank’s bottom, attach a hose, and prepare for water discharge. |
| What If No Water Comes Out? | Open a hot water tap inside the house to relieve the vacuum and facilitate water flow from the tank. |
| Using the Relief Valve | If water still does not flow, the tank’s relief valve can be opened to aid drainage. |
| Why Else Might Draining Be Necessary? | Draining might be needed to address leaks and prevent water damage before professional repairs can be made. |
| Conclusion and Professional Assistance | If unable to follow these steps, seek assistance from a local plumbing company or licensed technician. |
One of the recent questions we’ve been getting a lot of is, how do I drain a water heater? Well, you might be asking, why do I need to drain my hot water tank? I need hot water in my house.
Preparing to Drain Your Hot Water Tank
Why Drain Your Hot Water Tank?
Well, there’s a few different things that we might need to be able to drain that tank for. Number one, the cottage. Everybody loves to get to the cottage in the summertime, cold water, bonfires, marshmallows. Well, at the end of a season at that very, very sad time, we need to winterize our home. How do we do that? One of the ways is, is we need to drain our hot water tank.
What Are the First Steps to Drain the Tank?
Let me explain exactly how to drain that tank. Number one, you want to go down to the tank and you want to find the cold water tap that’s at the top of the tank. We want to make sure that is close. Now, the most crucial element to draining a hot water tank is to make sure the power is shut off to the tank. If you leave the power onto the tank, you’re going to end up blowing up the tank, and then we’re going to end up having to replace an entire tank, which is an added cost to you, which we don’t need.
The Draining Process
Locating and Connecting to the Drainage Valve
The next step we want to be able to do is we want to be able to locate the drainage valve at the bottom of the tank. Typically, these are going to be roughly a couple inches off the ground and is almost going to look like the same type of tap that you would have outside that you would connect your hose to. Now, what you’re also going to want to be able to do is you want to be able to grab one of those hoses from outside and hook it up to that tap. Now, typically where your hot water tanks would be stored at are mostly in what we call a mechanical room. Inside of that mechanical room will typically either have a floor drain or it’ll have a sum pump. You’re going to have to drain that bucket and continuously empty it every time it fills up.
What If No Water Comes Out?
At that point, you can turn around and turn on the valve. Now you might be saying, Hey, I have no water coming out. Well, here’s the next step that you might have to take. If that’s the case, what we want you to do is go into any tap inside of your house. We want you to turn on the hot water. What that’s going to do is it’s going to help relieve the vacuum, we call it, to allow the water to start to flow. So once you go back down to your hot water tank, you might be saying, ah, it’s still not draining.
Using the Relief Valve
We have one more step that might need to be taking place to do that. If you see on the side of your hot water tank, you may see about anywhere between 12 inches to 18 inches high. You may see a small clear pipe coming down and a small valve there. That’s where you may need to flick that valve on. That is called a relief valve. At that point in time, you might be able to see the water flowing out of the hot water tank.
Additional Reasons for Draining
Why Else Might Need Draining?
Another reason we might need to drain our hot water tank. Well, what if there’s water around the hot water tank and you don’t know where it’s coming from? Well, you’re going to do an investigation. You might realize, oh, my hot water tank is leaking. You’re going to call a licensed plumber to come out and change that tank. But in the meantime, until they’re able to get there, we want to make sure that we’re draining as much water out to cause the least amount of damage to the home.
Conclusion
These steps are a very simple procedure in order for you to drain your hot water tank. If you are unable to turn around and do these steps, please call your local plumbing company or a licensed technician to assist you with this process. Comment hot water below, and one of our consultants will be happy to reach out to you to either walk you through this process over the phone or schedule an appointment for a technician to be able to come out to help drain the water out of your hot water tank.
