How to winterize a furnace and a water heater?
I’m Vince Clingenpeel. We’re showing you how to winterize your home. Now, we’re down here at the furnace and water heater. This is a four stair furnace, in this case. If you’ve got a boiler, you’re probably going to need a plumber to help you winterize it. You can either put antifreeze in the system or drain it entirely. You’re going to need some help. It is a very complicated piece unless you have a specialized knowledge.
If you’ve got electric heat, your problem is just turn off the switch, simple enough With this furnace, you shut the gas off outside. That’s one of the first things we did and we cut off the main gas, propane or natural gas. Find the valve inside, shut this valve off as well. The emergency switch may not be always as handy as it is here. In some of the older houses, it’s marked with a red switch plate. Don’t forget your humidifier if you have one. You got to drain all the water out of it.
It might be a good time talk about the filter, if you’re going to shut the system down, you can clean or replace or at the very least pull it out and set it aside as a reminder when you come back.
Let’s talk about the water heater. Your fill valve is got to be open. It’s a good time to check your TPR valve (temperature relief valve) if that is corroded or leaking, it’s a big deal, get it fixed. If you drain the house and you got a faucet down here in the basement, the water heater is the only really siphoned down here, so you got to remember to drain it entirely.
You can put a hose. This thread fits a hose, run it to a floor drain outside somewhere. Open your valve; drain your water heater to the very end. This particular one is electric, before you empty it entirely, be sure that you’ve turned it off. You don’t want those heater coils heating air. A gas water heater, you’ve done the same thing as you did here with the furnace which is, shut off the valve and make sure that doesn’t call for heat.
If you’ve got to sump pump, if you have got a sump pump, don’t forget that, you’re going to have to drain that. Run it if you need to, get all water out of the system. Any items like that have to be taken care of. Now, let us go over and talk about the electric system.