Originally Posted by
Mark Bolton
I have now been involved in three failures of those SS water heater flex connectors one of which was at my SO's house and didnt flood the basement but made quite a mess and literally soaked a 200 amp main panel as luck would have it the leak happened with a pretty much direct shot at the panel 15' away.
I personally would never install any of those flex lines in my home anywhere. When one fails you will see that the inner poly tube is not very substantial (hence the outer s.s. braid) and all three of these the inner tube had pretty much turned to a soft gooey plastic. My guess is chlorine in the city water supply but who knows.
Ive said it before, I dont even use the flex connectors on toilets and sinks. Soft copper is the only way to go for me.
Mark
Do you happen to remember which brand you used, and what the time interval to failure was? I installed two of them over a decade ago on our water heater, and to date they have been fine. Of course, everything is fine, until it isn't.
Every sink in my house, and both toilets have flexible, braided, stainless hose going to it. I did have one failure, but it was an OEM, Grohe hose. Luckily it came after the valve. It had gotten kinked somehow or the other.
Stephen
Don't drive your self crazy installing an electric water heater. Mimic what was there, and you should be fine unless you're going to a different style system.
The difference for the codes is geographic location.
Mine has all the check valves, shutoffs, and anti siphon devices installed, and I don't need any of them, except for the check valves. I'm on a well, not city water. It is impossible for me to back pressure, and contaminate the city water system. The closest city water pipe to me is 3 miles away. But, my water heater had to have all of those features. I also have anti siphon hose bibs installed, which I don't need.
Last edited by Mike Cutler; 11-29-2019 at 8:57 AM.
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