Water heater sludge.....Yuck!

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T

Tim

Hello all! While winterizing my water system I had trouble draining my water heater using the petcock. It drained a little but really just a trickle. I have a sealand 6gal water heater and the boat is a 89' H30. I then disconnected the in and out lines and used some rigging tape to attach the pump for the dink to one of the ports and proceeded to force the water out of the tank. The last couple of pints out of the tank were brown and contained jelly like chunks of slime....yum. I believe it is this sludge that prevented the petcock from draining the tank. This raises a couple of questions. What is it? Is there anyway to get rid of it? Since I had to extract the the water from the in and out ports is there still some water/sludge in the water heater that is in danger of freezing? Any help would be great. Thank you in advance, Tim
 
Dec 3, 2003
2,101
Hunter Legend 37 Portsmouth, RI
The Way I Do It.

I always drain my water heater by disconnecting the IN and OUT lines. I then open the vent switch (on the unit) and drain it into the bilge - no problems. I then use my water vac to get rid of it.
 
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