wrote in message
oups.com...

Rust requires moisture and air. A empty tank is the perfect
environment for fast rusting

Much better to leave water fl;owing with pilot off

I have some rentals and I had one water heater that I had pulled due to a
bad thermocouple and had sitting for 4 years. I had a failure in another
unit on a Saturday night so I swapped in the one that was sitting.

After the water heater came up to temp, I opened the kitchen tap and did not
get any rusty water. It would seem to me that there is no advantage not to
drain the tank for the OP. If you are worried about any residual dampness
in the tank, fire it up empty until the steam blows off. the inside then
will be dry as a bone.

An annual draining would also have the advantage of evacuating all the
sediment while the chunks are small enough to flow out easily.


--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.