Draining Hot Water Tank

Don't see where water from the HW heater is much different than raining on it or washing it.

A towel should do it.

How about a funnel with a hose attached. Drain to a 5 gal bucket or the ground

Don't think I've ever noticed any water marks from draining the heater. Anything that fresh should rinse right off though.

I have a Winnebago Aspect. When i take the plug out of the water heater, it drains down the side of the RV. I am awaiting delivery of my new Itasca Sunstar 30T and I would like to find a way to avoid that on the new rig.. I'm sure someone smarter than me has figured that out

Shouldn't be that hard or expensive to put some aluminum foil down the side of the trailer before you start draining the water. Learned this trick for draining the oil on the motorcycle. Only way to keep the oil off the exhaust pipes.

I have never really checked but when I hook up my 12VDC non-tank Compressor to the trailer city water inlet to blow out the water lines I empty the water heater pretty much as well by opening the hot water valves at the sinks. My hot water cold water input is on the bottom of the water heater. If there is any water left inside the hot water heater it will have alot of expansion room if things freeze up. After I drain out all of the water at the low point and blow out the lines then I add some pink stuff to the P-TRAPS.

Note this typical water flow chart for the trailers.


I probably am flirting with death but I have never drained my water heater at the bottom port for winterizing. I have done some maintenance of flushing the water heater by removing the bottom port and also removing the water heater rod anode for inspection. I do sometimes here at the house open the top spring loaded pressure relief valve over the winter months.

Our winter months here in Northern Neck VA are very mild. We probably have only had a couple of nights of freezing overnight and it always warms up above freezing the next day. This year may prove different since the whole country is experiencing strange weather patterns...

Roy Ken

I hold a bucket up to catch most of it. (6 gallon heater) While winterizing or any other water heavy activity I always have a towel to immediately wipe up the inevitable spillage.

Since you haven't filled out a signature line and didn't mention what type of RV you have, I have to make some assumptions. On my motorhome I've got a low point drain along with fresh water and water heater valves near my black/grey dump valves.