Water coming in "hot water out" line

I have been trying to fix my water heater going on 3 days now. The problem was that there was suddenly no pressure on the hot water side throughout the house so I narrowed it down to the water heater which is almost 10 years old, no rust and no leaks. First thing I had planned to do was to simply drain it and flush it to clean it out. I did it the way I was supposed to, turned the power off, shut off the cold water supply and hooked up the hose at the bottom. Nothing came out the bottom but that is another story. Once I got it to drain from the bottom, about 6 hours later, with water still coming out the drain hose I gave up on it emptying completely so I put it all back the way it was and still no pressure and then it wasn't even getting hot. I have done everything. Rerouted the cold back into the hot and gotten plenty of pressure in the house, run the cold line into the hot to try to loosen some debris on that side in the heater, also run in another garden hose and tryed to force water in through where the hot comes out and the cold goes in. During all this a couple things happened that confused me. I had noticed that when they were both still hooked up and I was trying to drain the heater, when I would turn on the cold to try to flush it I could hear water in the hot side but not really the cold which I knew I had turned on. Then with the water heater unhooked completely I turned the cold valve off and turned the water supply back on to the house and water when I came back up to make sure it wasn't leaking (my cold valve had been leaking) there was water coming OUT through the line going into my house that is where the hot line goes to. I put my thumb on it while looking for a bucket and there is a lot of pressure. It wasn't just water in the pipes draining out. Another thing is last night I capped off the hot and cold, bypassing the water heater completely, turned the water on and went to bed. This morning I got up and went to wash my hands and not thinking turned on the hot side in the bathroom (separate hot and cold) I have water on the hot side. It is cold but a steadly stream. That is my question. Why do I have water in my hot water lines when I am bypassing the water heater and is that normal? Isn't that why I could never get it to drain completely and why I heard water the hot water line when I was trying to fill it with the cold? By the way, I still have no pressure, have bought new dielectric nipples but don't want to mess with that if I can break up the blockage another way. Nothing I do is turning out like it supposed to. I also have new elements but can't get the old ones out because the metal hex it is supposed to fit on doesn't seem thick enough and the element wrench keeps slipping off and I am afraid I will damage them and don't even know for sure they are bad at this point. It is an Envirotemp 50 gallon made by American.

your description of what you did and what was happening is so convoluted that I gave up trying to follow it. If you have certain kinds of faucets they will divert the cold water into the hot side, and that seems to be what is happening. As for why you do not have water in the hot side, that could be a broken inlet valve to the heater, which even though you THINK you are opening, is not. The make and model of the heater is probably irrelevent, as is flushing and draining the heater.

hj said:

your description of what you did and what was happening is so convoluted that I gave up trying to follow it. If you have certain kinds of faucets they will divert the cold water into the hot side, and that seems to be what is happening. As for why you do not have water in the hot side, that could be a broken inlet valve to the heater, which even though you THINK you are opening, is not. The make and model of the heater is probably irrelevent, as is flushing and draining the heater.

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I am sorry about the "convoluted" story. I thought I was making myself clear. I am not a plumber but I think what you are referring to are the types of faucets that mix the hot and cold and the type I have have separate knobs for the hot and the cold, as I stated. I have found the problem to the low pressure on the hot side and it is that the cold inlet in the water heater is clogged. I am assuming with it clogged the hot is not able to flow freely and the only reason I still have water in my tank with my cold inlet clogged is because I have water coming in from the hot. I have cold water at the supply source since I was able to reroute the cold back into the house via the hot supply lines and get full pressure.

Many WH are installed with heat traps and/or dielectric unions. One of those could be clogged or jammed shut, restricting the water flow.

As to draining the WH, unless you opened up a hot valve somewhere, trying to get water out of it is nearly impossible. Think finger over the end of a full straw...the water just hangs in there. You must provide a means of air to get in there to enable the tank to drain, not just open up the drain valve at the bottom.

About the only way "water can come in from the hot" would be if you have a faucet causing crossover, and that usually only happens with a single handle faucet, unless there is something unique about your house's plumbing system.

If you have water flowing out of the "hot" pipe with the cold valve closed and all other faucets closed, your hot and cold pipes may be reversed at the water heater.