Decided to drain the water heaters today, as I'm near certain that the previous residents of this house have never done it... well, I got to the gas one and the handle, which is just some cheezy stamped thing, stripped before I could open the valve. I hit three hardware stores; all I can find are the standard handles with either a square or splined broach in them. This one only has two flats on the stem. It's tight enough that I can't open them with pliers.
The other one is some solar thing; I opened the valve and it never closed again :( Right now the hose is dangling in the sink with a nozzle on it to keep the water from flowing, tomorrow I guess I'll buy a cap and never touch that one again. I did work it back and forth quite a few times, thinking that it probably just had some crap stuck in it that needed to be flushed out, but that didn't do the trick.
So the questions:
1) I suspect that attempting to replace either valve will probably result in failure of the water tanks, so there's not much point in attempting to do that, correct?2) The gas water heater is a Rheem unit, I am guessing that this valve came with it, does anyone know where I could buy a replacement handle that would work? Or am I stuck with just using that one until it fails and then buying a whole new water heater, as well?
thanks,
nate