Wife goes into the basement Wednesday to get some meat out of the freezer, "I think the hot water tank is leaking". Sure enough, a puddle around the bottom of the tank. Must be starting to rot out from the inside. The tank was here when we bought the house in 2019 and is no spring chicken, an Estate brand with a date code of 1996. She's well past her prime. It still made decent enough hot water, but I will say the water kinda stank. The colors and chunks that drained from this bad boy were impressive! Literally last week I was telling a friend of mine how old my tank was and "I'm gonna run it until it croaks".
There was a lot of corroded copper (sweated pipe to the tank + unions and general corrosion from no dielectric nipples) and the two shutoff valves didn't function anymore, also pair that with some old piercing valves for whole home humidifiers, it was time to cut a lot of this mess out.
Some hate then, but I think Sharkbite are some of the easiest and very reliable (IF prepped/installed right) ways to transition from copper to PEX. So I cut the old corroded and pierced stubs back to clean copper and installed two 3/4 Sharkbite Max ball valves. From there, 3-4" stubs of PEX-B with PEX-B to 3/4 male pipe thread 90* elbows. Then the tank is connected with corrugated 3/4 FIP to 3/4 FIP hoses. I wanted this to be (A) serviceable in the future, (B) little to NO strain on any piping and (C) clean and routed well. Since the old sweated lines to the tank were effectively supporting this long copper span, I took some copper strapping and secured both hot/cold runs to a floor joist near the tank so they do not have any undue strain.
The old tank was a 40 gal and I upgraded to a 50gal Rheem Performance Platinum from Home Depot. 12 year warranty, 40k BTU... nice unit. My bright self totally did not realize how much wider this new one was until I got it home -- I also had to re-work my gas feed. A couple of black iron 1/2" 90s and 1/2" nipples and we were all set. BTW, 3 different stores were out of black iron 1/2" 90s... how lol. Replaced the vent ducting, excellent drafting when running.
After lighting, we had hot water in about 40 minutes. That was fast! I put it on 'B' and it is supposed to be 130* water. Seems way hotter than the old tank. I am super pleased with the quick hot water and in general how this replacement turned out, especially for never changing out a HWT before. I have been the flashlight holder for Dad many of times, but this was my first go around.
There was a lot of corroded copper (sweated pipe to the tank + unions and general corrosion from no dielectric nipples) and the two shutoff valves didn't function anymore, also pair that with some old piercing valves for whole home humidifiers, it was time to cut a lot of this mess out.
Some hate then, but I think Sharkbite are some of the easiest and very reliable (IF prepped/installed right) ways to transition from copper to PEX. So I cut the old corroded and pierced stubs back to clean copper and installed two 3/4 Sharkbite Max ball valves. From there, 3-4" stubs of PEX-B with PEX-B to 3/4 male pipe thread 90* elbows. Then the tank is connected with corrugated 3/4 FIP to 3/4 FIP hoses. I wanted this to be (A) serviceable in the future, (B) little to NO strain on any piping and (C) clean and routed well. Since the old sweated lines to the tank were effectively supporting this long copper span, I took some copper strapping and secured both hot/cold runs to a floor joist near the tank so they do not have any undue strain.
The old tank was a 40 gal and I upgraded to a 50gal Rheem Performance Platinum from Home Depot. 12 year warranty, 40k BTU... nice unit. My bright self totally did not realize how much wider this new one was until I got it home -- I also had to re-work my gas feed. A couple of black iron 1/2" 90s and 1/2" nipples and we were all set. BTW, 3 different stores were out of black iron 1/2" 90s... how lol. Replaced the vent ducting, excellent drafting when running.
After lighting, we had hot water in about 40 minutes. That was fast! I put it on 'B' and it is supposed to be 130* water. Seems way hotter than the old tank. I am super pleased with the quick hot water and in general how this replacement turned out, especially for never changing out a HWT before. I have been the flashlight holder for Dad many of times, but this was my first go around.
