How often do you drain hot water heater tank?

Don & Carolyn wrote:
What is an inside water filter?

We have the filter outside that we replace twice a year. WHERE is the inside water filter located? We cannot think of where a water filter would be located in our 5th wheel.

We have the big bathroom that takes up the whole back of our camper and in the very back in the back wall just above the floor, next to the toilet, there is a little cabinet door with all 4 sides screwed. The water filter sits in a plastic container behind that door. It is a very small opening, horrible to get to and we wound up taking the side wall out of the sink cabinet next to it, so we could get 2 hands back there to screw the plastic container top on and off.

My water filter is located just past the control valve on the water inlet. There is a compartment behind this valve that has a removable bulkhead. Inside this space are the water pump, water heater, converter, and #1 gray water tank access, along with a bunch of electrical wires going to the breaker box. There was plenty of room to install and get at this new filter system.
To OP, after reading about the hard water build up some have mentioned, I may start draining my hot water tank between camping trips if I have to wait more than 2 weeks before hitting the road. Great post.

Lakeside

What is an inside water filter?

We have the filter outside that we replace twice a year. WHERE is the inside water filter located? We cannot think of where a water filter would be located in our 5th wheel.

Jayco23FB wrote:
I drain mine after every trip. Its easy to get to and no reason not to.

+1

We drain it after every trip now but didn't in the past. Our Hot water heater has an Anode and this breaks down a lot faster if you leave it soaking in the water over the whole season and that debris can get into your water lines (it did for us). Our TT was only 4 years old and we had clogged water pipes at the back end of our TT (the bathroom) due to debris from the Anode and hard water scale buildup and calcium deposits from visiting various campgrounds. The waterline to the toilet was completely blocked and the sinks in bathroom just trickled. It cost us $700 to get them cleaned out professionally, after our own attempts failed. The service company told us to help prevent this in the future, we should remove the anode, empty the hot water heater after each trip and remember to always use water filters inside and a prefilter outside. We had also skipped replacing the inside filter because it was a challenge to get to inside the back wall. I think for us it was the combination of things that caused this but it sure was an expensive lesson learned.

I drain mine after every trip. Most of the times I get some calcium deposits. I am on a well with very hard water. As said easy to do so why not.

I need to drain at least once a year to flush all of the calcium deposits out.

Extra weight? WOW - your beast diesel won't even know it's full!

End of season ONLY.

In 7 years of fulltiming we've only drained it twice when I changed the anode.