T&P valve and Drain dripping after Drain and Flush the water heater

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DaisyNH

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Hello,
today I was trying to drain and flush the 10year old water heater for maintenance. Here are the steps I followed after I checking out the instruction videos on YouTube: 1. Shut off gas valve, turn the knob to off. 2. Close the cold water valve on the heater water 3. Connect a garden hose to the drain 4. keep the hot water facet in kitchen open 5. open the drain valve 6. Open the T&P valve.
After 50 min of waiting, I briefly open the cold water supply to flush, water is coming out from both garden hose and T&P valve line (I am wondering why the water came out from the T&P valve line as well). I repeated it 3 times and the same thing happened.
I disconnect the garden hose from the drain, close the drain valve. Turn off the T&P valve, open the water supply to refill the tank. If I do not turn off the T&P valve, the water comes right out from the T&P valve drain once I open the water supply.
I have not yet relight the tank yet but I noticed water is dripping from both the drain valve and T&P valve. Water came out from the kitchen facet smoothly without giving any air splash.
The two valves on the water heater were not leaking or dripping before I did the maintenance. Now that they do not stop dripping and I am wondering if there were any steps that I did wrong through the maintenance and how can I fix it.
Please help and I really appreciate it! Thank you.

quick update:
After 2-3 hours wait, now that the T&P valve line is not dripping and only the drain valve is dripping. Right now I have not relight the gas, the cold water supply is open, and only the drain valve is dripping.
Should I relight the tank and see if everything works and hope the drain valve will stop dripping?

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Terry

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Relight the tank, and if the drain keeps dripping, pick up a hose thread cap in the garden department of your hardware store.
The T&P never gets capped.

wh-install-bradfordwhite.jpg
 
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WorthFlorida

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From your descriptions the tank never drained. Water coming out of the T&P and no air when opening a faucet. Sediment can easily plug up the drain valve and it never drained more than to the T&P level. Overtime corrosion and minerals can set up at the T&P valve. When opening it then closing it, the valve may not seat correctly and it might weep with a full tank. Sometimes just opening and closing a few times to flush it usually will work. A typical CA home with the WH outdoors, a hose it not needed. Just let it drain and you'll easily tell if it is draining or not. If it is really full of sediment, you'll need to remove the drain valve.
 

Terry

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Not draining well? Put the hose on the drain and with the water pressure still on to the water heater, let it blast out, if it can. Sometimes you need to run that under pressure to blow out the crud that collects at the bottom of a tank.
 

DaisyNH

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From your descriptions the tank never drained. Water coming out of the T&P and no air when opening a faucet. Sediment can easily plug up the drain valve and it never drained more than to the T&P level. Overtime corrosion and minerals can set up at the T&P valve. When opening it then closing it, the valve may not seat correctly and it might weep with a full tank. Sometimes just opening and closing a few times to flush it usually will work. A typical CA home with the WH outdoors, a hose it not needed. Just let it drain and you'll easily tell if it is draining or not. If it is really full of sediment, you'll need to remove the drain valve.
Thank you for replying!
I totally agree with you. I just redo the the drain process and I realize that the water never got drained. I put a bucket directly under the drain valve and saw that the water coming out is slower than what I saw on YouTube videos. I think minerals build up at the drain valve.
The water has been draining for 1h. I am still letting it drain since the water comes out slower. I hope it will drain up completely shortly and I can proceed other steps. If not, I will just open and close a few times to flush like you suggested no matter it is drained out or not. Do you think it is a good step to go?
 
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DaisyNH

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Not draining well? Put the hose on the drain and with the water pressure still on to the water heater, let it blast out, if it can. Sometimes you need to run that under pressure to blow out the crud that collects at the bottom of a tank.
Thank you Terry for replying! I do think that it is not draining well since I saw the water coming out of the drain is much slower than the ones I saw on Youtube video.
I think the water never been drained the first time so I am redoing it now. Water has been draining for 1h and still going, I think I will give it another hour to see if it can drain completely. After that, I will just open and close a few times to flush no matter it is drained out or not. Do you think it is a good step to go?
 

DaisyNH

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I think you need to blast some water through there at full pressure.
Thank you Sir. I end up replacing the drain with a 3/4 ball valve.
I had to change the valve before the water was fully drained because the drain got clogged. I tried to take out the old drain valve and inserted in a new one as quickly as possible but there was still water blast out. Now that there is water at the very bottom of the water heater (I opened the cover plate and felt inside with my hands). i am assuming the water is from when I changed the drain valve. Sir, is there any way I can get the water out?
 

WorthFlorida

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The tank does not have to be completely drained. The purpose is to flush out mineral deposits. It's OK to have drain it with the valve removed and then turn on the water to flush it out. Also, as Terry suggest, with a garden hose you can shoot water into the tank from the drain valve to help unclog it or with the valve removed, otherwise you did OK. Your drain valve was brass and that is good and it should have been fairly easy to clean it of debris. A ball valve is far easier to use but if kids are usually around, cap off the ball valve with a cap.
 

DaisyNH

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The tank does not have to be completely drained. The purpose is to flush out mineral deposits. It's OK to have drain it with the valve removed and then turn on the water to flush it out. Also, as Terry suggest, with a garden hose you can shoot water into the tank from the drain valve to help unclog it or with the valve removed, otherwise you did OK. Your drain valve was brass and that is good and it should have been fairly easy to clean it of debris. A ball valve is far easier to use but if kids are usually around, cap off the ball valve with a cap.
Thank you very much! I replaced the drain valve and every other following steps for draining and flushing the water heater just went through smoothly. thank you again for helping me find the issue!
 

DaisyNH

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Hi my friends, I just want to give a update for what I have done to solve the problem.
As the two gentlemen above pointed out, I never drained the water completely at the first time. The second time when I was trying to drain I noticed that the water came out very slowly. I could not use the method of connecting the hose and flash water back to the tank to unclog since it has been several years of no maintenance. I chose to replace the valve with a ¾ ball valve. I was able to get water out and proceed with flushing and relighting. Everything works well now and I feel so relieved and excited at the same time that I learned something new :)
thank you all who provided so much valuable information for me to help me resolve the issue.
 
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