It's been a few years since I flushed my water heater and I recently went to do it and it's only dripping slowly, not running and flushing. Possibly related, in the last few months we've been running out of hot water much sooner – no change in usage, but now we regularly run out if even two people shower at once.
I had somebody out and they told me everything is fine and that he'd tested it and everything was good (though he was here less than 10 minutes). When I mentioned the failed flushing, he said sediment gets big if you want to long and you just need to get a new heater, and then just told me to take shorter showers and had no other help to offer.
My questions –
- would a lot of sediment cause us to run out of water sooner – like it's harder to heat new water to keep up?
- how can I flush sediment if it won't drain and trying to use a wire hanger to break it up doesn't do anything?
- it's 12 years old – is it just worth replacing at this point anyway?
Thank you for your help!
Best Answer
One thing to try to get the sediment stirred up and moving out would be:
Turn off the heat supply (caution, mostly)
Shut off the cold water supply to the heater. Open a hot water faucet, or more than one. Remove the aerator screens...crud may come out here.
Attach a hose to the drain and to a cold hose bibb. Open the drain, and open the hose bibb. Allow water to flow from the hot faucet for a while, then shut off the cold hose bibb and remove the hose from the bibb and route it to a drain/sump.
The idea, which may or may not work depending how firmly clogged your heater is, is to backflush and loosen the sediment with the water coming in from the drain before trying to drain it out the drain.