Installing Water Heater - Hot Water Anyone?

Your water heater needs replacing. But instead of calling a professional to install it for you why not trying it yourself? The job is not that complicated nor is it intimidating to do. In fact replacing you water heater is one of the most common household plumbing projects.

There are, however, some precautions that you need to do but otherwise the whole process takes less than a day. One of the things that you need to do is check local codes and use only the installation procedures approved by your local code.

First things first, you need to remove the old heater from the wall. You need to turn off or pull off the plug of the old heater first. This is your first job and one of the most important thing to do. Also you need to turn off the gas, if it is that kind of filter, as well. Once you’ve disconnected the old heater from the electricity or gas connection, start draining the unit. There might be some water remaining in the old heater and that needs to come off.

What you could do is to open a hot water faucet to allow air into the system. With regards to a gas heater, you will need to separate the vent pipe from the draft hood. Now be sure that the hood is lifted off before you attempt to remove the sheet metal screw that holds the unit up on the wall. Check if the pilot light is out. Once you have confirmed this, disconnect the gas line at the heater and cap it.

After removing the unit from the power and/or gas lines, you will need to remove the heater from the water piping. You might need a pair of pipe wrenches to remove the heater from the water piping. Normally, pipes are connected with unions which have threaded fittings. These kinds of fittings need to be sawed off. The right tool for the job is a hack-saw or a pipe/tubing cutter. Now after all that stuff, the old heater can be removed by just lifting the unit off the wall.

Installing your new heater basically means going to the same process but in reverse. Take your new heater into position, which means placing your new unit near your piping or the gas vent pipe. Install the heater's new draft hood. It is common for new heaters to have legs that can easily insert into holes on the heater's top. Remember that every gas water heater needs proper venting.

It is therefore a great idea that you use new vent pipe elbows. The ventilation system should go straight up as far as possible. If there’s no choice but to bend the vent horizontally, then you must do so in an upward slope of at least Ľ" per foot. Short metal screws are used to connect the vent pipes.

Once you’ve installed the gas piping, you now can install the cold and hot water connections. Flex connectors are the most common ways to make these connections. Flex-connectors are easily bendable and it will be quite easy to reach the connection.

The piping might differ in each house but regardless the heater should be fitted with a cold water gate valve. What you do is place the valve in a vertical section of piping. This will keep the vale from becoming fouled with sediment.

Meanwhile, a threaded pipe needs a union on both the hot and cold water lines. Since the two halves of a union are made to fit together perfectly, you need to replace the whole set. Unions, however, are not necessary with flex-connectors. All you need to use is a PTFE tape on the male threads. Pipe dope should not be used on the male threads entering the flex-connectors.

Also, with thermoplastic pipes flex-connectors are not necessary. What you’ll need instead are "transition unions" between the metal heater threads and the plastic piping. One you can also use is rigid CPVC tubing with solvent used to weld the joints together. Flexible PB pipes can also be used with joints being connected with mechanical couplings. PB, however, cannot be welded together by a solvent. Remember, though, not to hook up a water heater with PVC, PE or ABS plastic piping. These pipes will not be able to handle the hot water.

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