4 Steps to Clean an RV Water Heater (Trust Me, It Needs It)

Like pretty much everything on your RV, your water heater is eventually going to require a bit of TLC. Over time, calcium and sediment will naturally build up inside your tank and can eventually affect your plumbing, alter the taste of your water, and even lead to bacterial growth. The "harder" the water in your area, the more likely you are to experience these issues.

That's why it's important to give your hot water tank a good cleaning and descaling as part of your RV maintenance routine. Here at etrailer, RVs and trailers come through in all kinds of conditions. So when we happened to come across one with a broken water heater that had never been cleaned, we fixed it up and gave it a thorough cleaning for good measure. Below, we'll walk you through how to clean your water heater, show you how we cleaned this one, and show you what came out of it.

Let's get started!

How Often Should I Clean My RV Water Heater?

As with everything RV related, your mileage may vary, but the typical recommendation is to flush and descale your water heater at least 2 times per year, or 4 times if you're a full timer. At the very least, seasonal campers should clean and descale the heater before storing the rig for the off-season. Your maintenance needs will just depend on how often you use your water heater and how hard the water is in your area (that is, how much mineral content it includes). The harder the water, the more frequently you'll need to flush out and descale your heater. (Hello from the Midwest, where we have some of the hardest water in the US.)

So, how do you actually go about cleaning your water heater? As mentioned above, we had a camper come through whose water heater had never been cleaned, so we'll walk you through our process and results.

Turn Off & Drain Your RV Water Heater

Let's start by draining the water heater. (If you've never done this before or aren't sure how, check out my article here for a quick walkthrough).

Essentially, it boils down to this:

Turn off your water heater, pump, and power supply. Let the water cool.
Pull the pressure relief valve.
Remove your drain plug or anode rod.

Your water heater might also have an anode rod (these are most commonly seen in Suburban water heaters). You'll want to replace the anode rod about once a year, or once it's about 75% corroded.

Letting the water drain out after we removed the drain plug

On the right is the anode rod we removed from our camper; on the left is the shiny new replacement. As you can see, the old rod is totally shot.

Thoroughly Rinse the Tank

Use a water heater rinser (they're super inexpensive and a great little maintenance tool to keep on hand) to flush any remaining sediment from your tank. Just connect one end of the rinser to your garden hose and stick the other end into the tank.

Jake H. Holding Water Heater Tank Rinser

This is Jake H, one of our resident RV experts, preparing to rinse this RV water heater

Closeup Look at Tank Rinser in Water Heater

Stick the end of your tank rinser into the water heater drain plug opening and move it around to spray down the tank sides, top, and bottom.

Check out all the sediment that washed out of our water heater!

Descale and Sanitize the Tank with Vinegar

Go ahead and replace your drain plug or anode rod now to plug up the water heater. We've finished flushing out our water heater, so now we can move on to the next step: sanitizing.

Mix a vinegar-water solution at a 2:1 ratio into a bucket (you'll need around 3 - 5 gallons). Then use a winterization kit to pump white vinegar into the water heater. The easiest way to do this is to simply attach the winterization hose to your city water connection and pump straight from the bucket. Alternatively, you can run the solution through your fresh water fill and use your water pump to push it through your water heater.

Once you've filled up the tank, turn the water heater back on and let the hot vinegar sit overnight to work its magic.

The Bleach Question: Can You Run Bleach Through an RV Water Heater?

It's the question that always pops up with the topic of cleaning: can I just bleach it? We'll be honest - we couldn't find a definitive answer about what types of disasters will rain down upon your RV if you bleach your hot water tank. And actually, we know many campers simply leave their heater bypass valves open while sanitizing the fresh water system with bleach so that the hot water tank gets bleached too.

However, keep in mind that some owner's manuals specifically call for the heater to be set to bypass mode before the bleach goes in, which suggests that RV manufacturers don't particularly want us bleaching the hot water tank. So, do with this information what you will. Would I personally run bleach through my water heater? No. Hot vinegar is perfectly capable of killing bacteria, mildew, and weird smells. So I'll stick with this vinegar method we used here. But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention that this kind of "incidental sanitizing" is pretty common.

Mix a 2:1 vinegar-water solution

Winterization Hose Connected to City Water

Attach the hose that comes with your winterization kit to your city water connection

Pumping vinegar solution into water heater

Use the winterization kit to pump the vinegar solution into the camper

Drain Your Water Heater (Again)

After your vinegar has had a nice sleepover in your hot water tank, it's time to drain the tank once again. Then, to wrap things up, either connect to city water or fill your fresh water tank and pump water through your system to flush out any remaining vinegar.

It's also a good idea to temporarily remove the screens on your interior faucets to wash away any sediment that might be caught in them.

Water Softeners:

If you find a lot of unexpected calcium buildup in your tank even when descaling multiple times a year, an RV water softener can go a long way in reducing the amount of maintenance you have to do. Water softeners remove calcium and other minerals from water, leaving it "softer" and therefore friendlier to your plumbing.

Drain the water tank a second time

And there it is - we now have a flushed and sanitized water heater ready for its next use. As you saw, this water heater desperately needed to be flushed and descaled, and the anode rod needed replacing. We hope the owner enjoys his clean hot water during his next trip - that's what it's all about!

About Amber S.

As a content writer for etrailer, I might spend my morning loading and unloading a bike on five different bike racks to figure out which is easiest to use. I might be in the parking lot, taking pictures of an impressive RV battery setup our techs came across in the shop and discussing the benefits of the setup with the owner. I might spend an afternoon in a manufacturer training classes for some hands-on experience with new products, and then sit down to assemble all this information into a coherent article.

At etrailer, one of our core values is that we are always learning, and I learn something new every day. I start each morning with the goal in mind of taking all of this information and figuring out the best way to answer the questions people ask us (and the ones they don’t know to ask yet), and helping people get the solutions they need to make their lives easier, safer, and more fun. I’m a DIYer at heart, so it brings me great joy to help a fellow DIYer find what they’re looking for, whether that’s a product, an answer, or a community.

Related Products

Shop RV Water Heater Bypass Kits

Shop RV Anode Rods

Shop RV Water Heater Tank Rinsers

Written by: Amber S.

Updated on: 11/18/21

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