By Cheri Sicard
When it comes to their RV water heater, a lot of RVers make the mistake of neglecting proper maintenance, which can lead to expensive water heater problems down the road. I have to confess to being one of those RVers, so I learned a lot from the video below from Enjoy the Journey.Life [204K subscribers, 27M views]. If you haven’t been showing your RV water heater the proper love and attention it deserves, you might learn, too.
In the video, Tom and Cheri meet with Jim from Kleen Tank to get his tips and best practices when it comes to RV water heaters. When you hire them to clean your RV’s tanks, they also do a complimentary flush of the water heater. You can also do this yourself and the video shows you how. (Note: This applies to traditional water heaters, not tankless or on-demand RV water heaters.)
Jim discusses the three main brands of RV water heaters that will benefit from flushing and a little bit about RV water heater anatomy.
Important: Make sure your water heater is off before attempting any maintenance on it. You don’t want it attempting to fire up while it is empty!
How often should you flush your hot water heater? According to Jim, full-time RVers should do it quarterly, everyone else twice a year (boy, am I ever behind).
In addition to flushing the tank, you may or may not need to replace its anode, as these can get pretty corroded (and I don’t even need to guess that mine does need replacing).
Rather than tell you what he does, watch the video as Jim has all kinds of tips and wisdom along the way. He also shows you what to look for and troubleshoot with your RV’s water heater. Most are simple tasks such as removing accumulated corrosion.
He also stresses the importance of keeping everything sanitary. You will NEVER want to use your black tank hose for water heater maintenance.
The whole job should only take about 10 minutes but can add years to your RV water heater’s life.
Time for me to go examine my RV water heater and get busy!
##RVDT2218
Why does it seem like the pressure relief valve ‘handle’ is reversed? I turn mine around so the flat side is what I put my finger on to pull the valve open.