Draining water heater

Pull the plug and flush out the minerals with something like a `Tank Saver' as sold by CW.

Drain mine at the low drain port. I open the spigots at the sink and also the hot water relief valve. When done I leave the hot water relief valve open over the cold season. This prevent what small amount of water is left in the bottom of the hot water heater to expand if it freezes. I also pull the Water Heater anode once a year for inspection usually after I have drained the water at the low point and seldom see any large amount of water present. This is usually around the OCT/NOV time frame...

When I am doing the blow-out using my portable compressor I usually hear air coming from the hot water heater opened relief valve.

We don't really have harse freeze periods here in Northern Neck Virginia anyway...

We do camp some in the late November time frame in our OFF_ROAD POPUP camper and do the blow out method at the camp sites when it is going to get below freezing at night. Drain the low water point, blow-out all the lines from the city water inlet, and add pink stuff to the one or two P-Traps we have. Then the next day we can fill the fresh water tank back up if we like and continue on camping. Works out for us just fine.

Of course everyone has their unique things to do... The objective is to do what works for best for your lifestyle.

In your case I would drain at the water low point and then go pull the anode port and see how water comes out. We alway get a very small amount that comes out (maybe a large cup full) but not enough to hurt anything since there is a large amount of open space left inside the hot water heater.

Roy Ken

Our rig's water heater does drain through low point drains as well but I've always just removed the drain plug as it is so much faster. We winterize de-winterize a few times each winter as we often camp for a couple of weeks in our warmer neighboring states of TX and AZ.

Additionally, it gives us a chance to inspect anode rod as we keep water in the WH all season, usually requires replacement every 4th year or so. Your method obviously worked as enough water was removed that expansion did not cause significant damage to occur.

I have always just opened the drain plub on the heater, and let all the water just bubble out. Found out this time that if I open the relief valve also, the tank drains a lot faster. I remove plug with anode, inspect rod, and replace it loosely to keep bugs out.

We installed a drain cock on our heater, remember to open the pop-off valve to allow the heater to vent and completely drain.The first trailer we had just opening the low point drains worked fine,our next trailer the water heater was below the low point drains as I learned after our first winter

... Don't leave it out (anode rod) over winter as others do, putting it back in will keep protecting the tank.

How does the anode rod protect an empty water heater?

As I said, I am no longer involved with this TT, having split with the now-full-owner. (He bought my half of it.)

I was just trying to figure out the best way to do it myself if I buy a RV in the future.

The TT is a basic Gulfstream Amerilite. It never occurred to us that the WH would NOT drain through the low point drains. We had the faucets open while draining. It did drain slowly but the amount of water seemed to confirm that the WH did drain.

If it was not drained, it definitely would have frozen under the storage conditions.

I believe it's an Atwood WH, am not 100% sure.

So the moral of the story is, some WH might drain through the low points, but not all will. And the anode should be checked regardless. (I don't know if ExBF has done that or not, it's not really my concern any more.)

MY TT WH will not drain through the low point drains.

keeping anode rod in during the winter keeps the spiders out.

Johno02 wrote:
keeping anode rod in during the winter keeps the spiders out.

Or MICE.

ICK.