Hot water tank draining

camperforlife wrote:

Cecilt wrote:
Why pull the rod at all if you are just draining to winterize. Easiest is to open low point drains, open taps and flip pressure valve. All the water will drain out of the HWH negating the need to remove the anode.

My experience is that the low point drain will not completely drain the water heater. Also if you use antifreeze, you would have to fill the water heater completely with antifreeze to pressurize the hot water system to get it through all the hot water pipes. Much easier to pull the rod and bypass the water heater with the antifreeze.

I just open the low point drain then set the bypass off and pump anti-freeze thru the system without filling the hw tank. I winterize and dewinterize several times a winter since we use our trailer about 10 months a year. Using the low point drain speeds things up because I don't have to remove the anode rod. There's never enough water left in the hw tank to cause any issues due to ice expansion.