3 Simple Questions

[molo]

1. Electric hot water tank is leaking directly from the spot where the cold goes into the tank, Can I fix this somehown (there is quite a bit of rust in this area) Is there a trick for threading these things out of the tank without ruining whatever it is they thread into?

2. I was running some new copper to a sink/shower/ and toilet. I put soldered the threaded male adapters onto the ends of each line so they could receive the 1/4 turn shut-off valves I'm using (I did the soldering before I threaded the shut-offs onto the male adapter). I wrapped the male copper end in teflon (going the right direction) and screwed the shut-offs on using wrenches. THEY ALL LEAKED!

a.How tight do I have to make these?
b.Should I be using pipe dope and teflon?
c.How many wraps of teflon are reccomended?

3. A PVC question; I accidentally dripped a bit of primer in a coupleing that I haven't used yet. The primer dried up, can I still use the coupling?

TIA,
Molo

[Terry]

Three wraps with Teflon tape, or you can tape and dope, or just dope.
I don't like to solder near a joint that has been put together, the heat can do bad things. If you leave a few inches of pipe, that is normally enough.

If you spilled some primer on a PVC fitting, go ahead and reprime and glue when you use it.

[Cass]

Question #1

If your heater is using dialetric unions and the inside is rusted bad you may want to replace both of them with dialetric nipples and female adp..

If it is a copper male adaptor going directly into the tank, change both of them and use dialetric nipples with female adp.

If it is a dialetric nipple clean and dope both male and female threads and replace it.

[Dunbar Plumbing]

In my area you cannot have a copper to galvanized connection at the water heater even though it is a dielectric nipple.

3/4" dielectric female unions on top the nipples coming out of the tank prevents this along with extreme ease of installing water heater in tight spots.

Copper and galvanized do not get along in any circumstance.

[Terry]

Where I'm at, I can use a flex connector, which acts like a dielectric union. If the water heater comes with dielectric nipples, (plastic lined on the inside) then I may use them. In other cases, I keep brass nipples on hand. They don't rust and can be used from tank to tank.