Water Heater Drain Valves..are they worth it?

CloudDriver wrote:
I made up the drain hose/valve setup for our water heater as shown in the picture below. All plastic parts from Home Depot, so no worry about dissimilar metal corrosion. I lift the lever on the pressure relief valve to allow air into the heater so it drains quickly. Thirteen years and never had an issue with the relief valve leaking after doing that.

When I winterize the RV I bypass the heater, then remove the drain hose from the heater so I can flush out any crud with a flush wand made from 1/4" copper tubing connected to a garden hose. After that, I screw the original nylon plug into the drain to keep out any bugs over the winter.

We have run out of fresh water a few times when boondocking and use the drain hose to fill a water bottle that I pour into the water tank to keep us going until we can get to a water source. I bypass the heater after draining so it doesn't just refill.

I can't tell what that fitting in the WH is, but neither that vinyl hose or PVC valve are rated for hot water only cold. You're lucky you haven't had issues probably because those are not exposed to the water temp on a continuous basis. However, there are much better alternatives such as either nylon or acetal fittings for the WH connection and normal water such off valve hose assemblies that are rated for hot water. I made my hose up using an Acetal fitting for the WH proper and a SS hose / metal fauct shutoff valve from Lowe's/HD. While the Acetal fitting is only rated at 180deg continuous I haven't had any issues in the almost 8 years I've had mine installed.

Pics:






I do like the hose valve assembly since I can get a fairly good "FLUSH" by opening the valve up when hooked up to city water and it will shoot a stream of hot water a good 10 to 20 feet which is a really good flow rate from the bottom of the tank and much better than just removing a plug. Also, I use that as a source of hot water for washing/rinsing my hands by cracking open the valve just enough for a lite stream ... CAUTION that water is HOT, HOT, HOT, so be careful if you do this. I've also used it to rinse off sewer fittings before putting away since it's on the utility side of the trailer anyway about 5' away from my dump valves.

Larry