Draining Waterlines House

[Bobber]

My old house hasn't sold yet, so have the heat turned down and have drained the water lines. I'm curious if it's worth messing around with shutting off the water heater and draining that too? Right now it's full and I've got the heat turned down to below the "vacation" setting. The water is turned off to it.

Does anybody have any experience with this?

[BigBake]

I would think you'd want to leave it going (but on low).

If you turn everything off then you have to turn it back on for a inspection.

I would think you could leave water heater full but just have the pilot running.

[CYdTracked]

I think you are better off leaving the water on actually. cold air through empty pipes probably are going to freeze things up quicker than room temperature water still in the pipes. just turn your water heater down to the lowest setting. My house has shutoff valves to the outside facets too so if you can locate those shut them off and drain out the ends if you can.

[Cyclonepride]

I left mine on in my house that I was trying to sell. I also went over and ran the hot water every once in a while for about 5 minutes. It doesn't take much for the water heater to rot out with no moving water.