Hot water heater & die-electric union

Hi all, new to this forum.

I am replacing a hot water heater and was wondering if a dia-electric union has to connect directly to the water heater itself or can i place it above a 1' copper flex pipe? Meaning, working up from water heater..... Water heater connected to 1 foot flexible copper tube connected to dia-electric union connected to copper pipe? Thanks for any advice.

Why do you want a union if you have the flex tubing¿

No copper directly connected to the tank...brass is OK...

You can use either dielectric nipples or brass nipples into the tank with the flex copper tubes connected to the nipples. You should have a ball valve on the cold water line so depending on the valve, you may need another brass nipple to transition the flex tube to the valve. The other side of the valve connects to the water supply line. Hot water side just goes from the nipple to flex to hot outlet line. Use care when bending the flex tubing, it will kink if you are not careful. No unions are necessary.

Also depending where you are at and what you state codes allow, yo might not be able to use flex supplies. Here in Illinois it must be hard piped. But in earthquake zones it must be flex pipe for the water and gas.

di-electric

The dielectric has to be on the tank. It would serve no purpose if you put it before the copper connector. But since most flexible connectors are also di-electric you should not even need it.

Thanks for all the replys. I didnt realize that that the flex pipe is also dia-electric. I do live in Illinois, chicago suburbs, and its code to have hard piped lines to tank? hmm

tank

There is a bit of discussion as to whether hard piping is really required or is just someone's opinion bsed on a generic drawing. The real answer lies with your building code and its interpretation by the inspectors.

prj309 said:

Thanks for all the replys. I didnt realize that that the flex pipe is also dia-electric. I do live in Illinois, chicago suburbs, and its code to have hard piped lines to tank? hmm

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Call your local plumbing inspector and ask them. Please post what they informed you of. I been doing plumbing in Illinois (Chicago and suburbs) for 17 years, and I never seen a inspector allow flex supplies on the water or gas.

SewerRatz said:

Call your local plumbing inspector and ask them. Please post what they informed you of. I been doing plumbing in Illinois (Chicago and suburbs) for 17 years, and I never seen a inspector allow flex supplies on the water or gas.

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Not that i didn't doubt you, I just find it funny that all the local hardware stores would tell me "use these (flex pipe) it'll make the job easier next time". The problem i had was the copper pipe to the water heater doesn't come straight down from the ceiling to the tank, it's more like a vertical, horizontal, vertical and on the cold water pipe the horizontal pipe was cut to short which made the vertical pipe to the tank not level. it was putting pressure on the inlet nipple and after 9 years it finally started to leak. That's why i wanted to go with flex pipe so i could compensate the off balance with out having to replace the entire zig zag from the ceiling.



But i did go with your advice and hard piped it, both hot and cold water zig zags. Thanks for your advice. Better to have it done right then have to replace it when its time to sell the house.