SLB
New Member
We bought our current house about 5 years ago. The previous owner had a new gas water heater installed just prior to selling us the house. I just noticed that there is a lot of scale and what appears to be corrosion around the area where the supply lines connect to the water heater.
I took a close look at the set-up, and from a galvanic corrosion standpoint, I think it may be wrong. The plumbing in the house is all copper. In the wall behind the water heater are 3/4" copper supply lines with sweated-on brass elbows with mounting lugs secured to blocking. A 3" to 4" iron nipple is threaded into each of the elbows and two more nipples into the two ports on top of the water heater. A copper flex line then connects the nipples from the water heater to the nipples coming out of the wall. All of the scale and corrosion seems to be at the water heater end, not at the wall. Is this a correct set-up? If not, what is the correct method of connection? Use dielectric unions?
Thanks,
Steve
I took a close look at the set-up, and from a galvanic corrosion standpoint, I think it may be wrong. The plumbing in the house is all copper. In the wall behind the water heater are 3/4" copper supply lines with sweated-on brass elbows with mounting lugs secured to blocking. A 3" to 4" iron nipple is threaded into each of the elbows and two more nipples into the two ports on top of the water heater. A copper flex line then connects the nipples from the water heater to the nipples coming out of the wall. All of the scale and corrosion seems to be at the water heater end, not at the wall. Is this a correct set-up? If not, what is the correct method of connection? Use dielectric unions?
Thanks,
Steve