Re: water heater maintenance - Landlord Forum thread 349451

Re: water heater maintenance by Garry on November 29, 2016 @10:22

Once a year, do 2 things. 1. run a hose from the bottom water outlet of the WH to a drain, open the outlet all the way open, and drain out about 5 gallons of water. That gets rid of any sediment that may be lying on the bottom of the tank. 2. There is a pressure relief (pop off) valve located either on the top of the WH, or on the side of it maybe 2-4 inches down from the top. Place a small bucket at the bottom of the pipe leading down the side of the WH from the PR valve. Open the toggle switch on the PR valve all the way, for just 2-3 seconds, and flip it back closed again. Wait 10 seconds, and do it again. Do that 3-4 times total. That knocks off any crud that may be on the PR valve on the inside of the WH. Wait 5 minutes from the final time of opening the valve, to be sure you have no steady drips, or a small stream coming out of the overflow pipe. Doing this, is to make sure the PR valve is working OK. If it's not working OK, water will continue to drip or run out the pipe, and it will never stop. Then you must replace the PR valve. For the fire side of the WH, just check the temperture knob at the bottom of the WH to be sure that is where you want the temp to be set at. Turn it up or down to your liking, but NEVER all the way to the hottest side. The flame part of the WH nowadays, are sealed so you cannot get into them to clean them.

[ Reply ] [ Return to forum ]

Re: water heater maintenance by Anonymous on November 29, 2016 @15:32	[ Reply ]

Thanks Gary!

Re: water heater maintenance by Anonymous on January 8, 2017 @19:28	[ Reply ]

Gary, are you a landlord? Do you do this or do your tenants? We are tenants in a home that has been a rental for several years and we have been here for two years. The hot water heater looks pretty new but for two days we had no hot water. Our landlord came and fixed it and then fussed on me for not draining the tank every six months. We knew nothing about doing that and because he blames us for everything that breaks, I was surfing just now to see whose responsibility hw heater maintenance is. Nothing about this is mentioned in our lease nor is anything mentioned about maintenance contracts on plumbing, electrical or hvac. It only says we are to keep the filters cleaned, lawn maintained,etc. I wouldn't think a property owner would want someone who didn't know what they were doing to mess with things like that. Thoughts? Tonight he basically said that I either have to figure out how to do the maintenance on everything or pay someone else to do it.