Water Heater Maintenance

Water heater maintenance is one of the most important yet overlooked things home owners need to take care of.  When you first move into your new house it is very important that you inspect the water heater and make sure that is working properly.  You can also hire someone to do this for you.

If you choose to hire a professional to do this for you, it would be very wise to follow them and watch exactly what they are doing.  While they are doing their water heater maintenance ask them as many questions as you can.  Take a notebook with you and write everything that they do and tell you down.  Next time you will be able to do the water heater maintenance on your own.

There are many different kinds of water heaters on the market today.  This site has instructions on how to do water heater maintenance on each different kind of water heater.  It is very important that you read through the safety procedures for water heater maintenance and also follow the safety procedures mounted on your water heater and in the manual that should have came with the water heater.

To make the most of this website about water heater maintenance, it is suggested that you choose the type of water heater that you have from the menu bar to your right.  Gas water heater maintenance will be a lot different from electric water heater maintenance.  That is precisely why this site has a page for each different kind of water heater.

There are some general safety precautions that you should take with every type of water heater.  You should never cut corners when it comes to safety, because something very bad could happen.  Please think about this one question while doing water heater maintenance.  Is it worth saving 2 minutes if I get burned badly?  Of course it is not, that is why it is so important to follow these safety procedures and you will get the water heater maintenance done without an accident.

Here are some general safety tips that concern almost every type of water heater.

• Always make sure that they power is disconnected from the water heater before doing maintenance.  It is best if you can unplug the water heater to assure that it has no power to it.
• Water heaters are hot, you need to make sure that before you lean or grab any part of it, that it is not hot enough to burn you.  You can do this by checking the temperature with a thermometer or you can tap the area gently with the back of your hand.  When checking if something is hot you should always use the back of your hand.  If you use your fingers or the palm of your hand and the object is hot, your hands first reaction is to close.  You do not want to close your hand around a pipe that is hot enough to burn you.
• Always make sure that the area that you are doing water heater maintenance is well lit.  One way that people could prevent a lot of accidents while doing hot water maintenance is making sure that they can see what they are doing.  Most water heaters are kept in dark areas and a lot of these areas do not have lights.  You can set up a work light or have someone hold a flash light so that you have sufficient light to do your water heater maintenance.

Now that you know all about the safety tips to follow it is time to pick the type of water heater that you have so you can begin your water heater maintenance.  Please choose your water heater type on the sidebar to your right.