Water Heater Leaking on Top at In/Oututs

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mpsfinancial

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We just installed a new 50 gallon gas water heater, within hours of installing I noticed small pools of water around the cold and hot nipples on the top where the water connects. There is no obvious leak and I can find nothing on this problem in the trouble shooting. This can't be normal. We did install new connectors, new nipples and used teflon tape at all connector points. Thoughts?
 
Thanks Rugged

I'll keep drying it for the next couple of days :)

Is it possible that either -
a) water pressure is too high?
b) connected the nipple too tightly?
c) ???

It seems to be quite a bit of water and only where the nipples connect to the heater. the flex tubes connected to the nipples are dry, no leak at that point.
 
I just installed a new tank myself a few months ago and had the same problem on the cold side. Luckily, I put in ball valve shutoffs on the hot and cold side. So the fix only took me a few minutes. I cut the copper pipe and re-doped and tightened the nipple down tighter than it was before. I got a great tip on this website to open the tank drain as I soldered to create a vacuum while I soldered, worked like a charm.
 
Water connectors use seals at the ends.
I hope you didn't use Teflon Tape for the flex connectors.
If so, pull the connector off, and remove the tape.
 
leaks

If the water is at the tank's connecton, then it is either not tight enough, or a bad thread in the heater, (not uncommon with heaters from the DIY big boxes). Sometimes tightening the pipe further, even though they seem very tight already, will seal them.
 
hj said:
If the water is at the tank's connecton, then it is either not tight enough, or a bad thread in the heater, (not uncommon with heaters from the DIY big boxes). Sometimes tightening the pipe further, even though they seem very tight already, will seal them.
Click to expand...

And if that does not work, you might try either using a pipe tap to try to fix the leaking connection point(s) or exchanging the heater altogether.
 
Thanks All, no more leak

I ended up, removing the teflon tape from the hose side (yup Terry there are washers:)) and putting on the slightly thicker "gas" tape on the sides going into the heater, seems like the problem is now solved!
 
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