Since water heaters work toil away so you can enjoy warm showers, clean clothes, and ensure dazzling pots and pans, following a rigorous water heater maintenance checklist is imperative. You can also elude unforeseen troubles with your water heater by keeping it in pristine condition, boosting its longevity for indefinite years. Besides ensuring consistent hot water, it also aids in preventing premature expensive water heater repair in San Jose. So, without further ado, let’s delve deeper to learn the comprehensive maintenance checklist for the water heater.
Table of Contents
Water Heater Preemptive Measures
Visual examination:
Plumbing leaks squander approximately 10,000 gallons of water annually, making it the most prevalent plumbing problem in houses, signifying obsolete or rusted water heaters might be to blame. It may also cause your water heater to stop working owing to the leaks in the tank. Thus, perform visual inspections of your tank once or twice a year. Examine loose screws, nuts, bolts, and worn-out gaskets, which may enable water leaking. Furthermore, check for traces of rust, corrosion, or stagnant water underneath the tank. You may seek assistance from experienced plumbers in San Jose for an annual inspection, ensuring the water heater’s optimum working.
Ensure the pressure relief valve is working:
The temperature and pressure relief valve is a safety mechanism included in all gas and a few electric water heaters, helping to alleviate surplus temperature and pressure within the tank by opening and closing. The valve will open instantly if the T&P surpasses the threshold (210 degrees F/150 psi). However, if it won’t open, the tank’s heat and undue pressure may force it to explode. A faulty or clogged valve may inhibit the valve from opening, prompting the pressure and heat inside the tank to escalate. Thus, annually examining the T&P valve is a prerequisite to prevent that from happening.
Check the anode rod:
An anode rod is a steel tube placed on the water heater’s top to draw oxidizing elements in the water and is composed of aluminum, magnesium, or zinc, safeguarding the water heater’s inside from corroding. However, your water heater tank’s liner will deteriorate rapidly if the anode rod isn’t there. Since the metal inside it corrodes more quickly than the tank’s liner, oxidizing agents will drive first to it. Furthermore, the anode rod endures three to five years, which may decrease if the tank has more oxygen. Thus, rather than waiting for the problem to worsen, call your local plumber in San Jose for an annual rod inspection and replace it if necessary.
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Water heater draining once or twice a year:
Water with over 180 mg/l calcium carbonate is deemed to be extensively hard. Although hard water does not often poses health concern, boiling it may impair the water heater’s effectiveness, reduce its life, and escalate your heating expenses. Thus, to prevent this, install a water softener and filter, as softeners will minimize sediment accumulation, and the latter will reduce pollutants. More essentially, consider draining your tank once a year and flush it with clean water to eradicate silt or dirt in the tank.
Following the above-cited water heater maintenance checklist will help you spot problems before they exacerbate and shorten your heater’s life. Moreover, through preemptive measures, you can discover and resolve water leaks before they inflate your water expenses.