Hot water heater questions

[lafinfil]

Black wrote:
I had visions of getting my watering done with the water from the tank, but no go. I can't get it to drain at anything more than a trickle.

You will need to break the vacuum buy removing incoming and outgoing connections at the top of the tank.
It still might be slow due to build up of sediment at the bottom of the tank, especially with the OEM gate valve.