A typical home water heaters contain enough clean drinking water to keep a person alive for a month during a disaster. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and other power outages may prevent you from having many things, but clean drinking water is not one of them.

Show Ads

[edit] Steps

Turn off the electricity or gas to the water heater. You will be draining the clean drinking water from it. If there is power to the tank damage to it will be certain. Unplug the cord, turn off the circuit breaker, or close the gas valve.
Preserve the cleanliness of the water in the tank by closing the supply valve to the tank. When water service is restored the water department will be pumping water that could be contaminated. This will be OK to use for flushing toilets and for cooking but not for drinking.
Know that all water heaters have a valve at the bottom of the tank for draining when it needs servicing. This is where your clean drinking water will come from. Many water heater valves have a connector for hooking up a garden hose to the drain valve. A short 3 foot length of garden hose will make the collection of the water easier. A washing machines supply hose is the perfect length and is available in many homes.
Learn that in order for the water to be drained from the tank you must allow air to get into it. This is easy to do by opening any hot water tap in the building such as the kitchen or bathroom sink.

[edit] Tips

Need a short length of hose to make the dispersion of the water easy? Use a supply hose from your washing machine.
Before disaster hits mark which valve is for the water supply. Run some hot water from any sink. Go back to the hot water tank and feel the two pipes attached to it. The supply line will be the colder one. Somehow mark the valve as "supply". This will be the one to close in an emergency so that contaminated water will not go into the tank as you drain the clean drinking water that is stored in it.
It is a good idea to flush some water from the bottom of the tank once or twice a year. Sediment can collect on the bottom of the tank. Draining some water under pressure will clean out the sediment.

[edit] Warnings

Turn off the power supply to the tank first. Even if there is a power failure you must unplug, turn off the circuit breaker, or close the gas valve first. If the tank is empty of water when service is restored damage to the tank will occur.
Allow the tank to fill before restoring power to the water heater. Open the supply valve and wait for the water to run out of the open hot water faucet.