How to Drain Your Hot Water Tank

Home School Care & Maintenance

As part of our Home Warranty Series, we've come up with step-by-step maintenance video guides for common house hold problems. In this video, you'll learn how to drain your hot water tank.

Here's how to drain your hot water tank:

1. Safety first! Have some protective gloves handy. Also, keep a hose close by for later.

2. Turn your heater off. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for this step to make sure you are doing this correctly.

3. Locate the valve that supplies cold water to the hot water tank and shut it off. This valve is usually located near the top of the heater.

4. Turn on the hot water from a nearby faucet to prevent a vacuum from forming in the lines.

5. With your gloves on, attach the hose to your heater’s drain valve and run the hose into the sum pale or the floor drain.

6. Open the drain valve and allow all the water to flow out.

7. Flush your heater to make sure its fully drained. To do this, turn the cold-water valve on and off to stir up any stubborn build up.

8. Close the drain, open up your cold-water valve, turn on your heater and you’re all done!