"CompleteNewb" wrote in message
. ..
My girlfriend's father helped me install a new water heater, and I watched
closely in the interest of eventually being able to do something my darned
self someday. Well, it turns out my chance came sooner than I thought.
The pipe feeding cold water to the tank has a slow leak at one of the
connectors (copper pipe fitted to another copper pipe). Looking at it
closely, it doesn't have the silveryness of the other connections, so
maybe we forgot to solder it, but it's such a slow leak that this seems
unlikely.

Solder does flow up to some degree.

[The following presumes the leak is between the shutoff valve & the water
heater] But in this case you might be better off by removing the pipe in
question and instead of fixing that particular joint, remove it completely
and install a flexible copper pipe. Note that they are not too flexible
really, but they do bend a bit. Mostly the advantage here is that they have
threaded ends - no need for a plumber or even a torch in the future should
you have some need to do anything to the water heater. Solder on a threaded
end to the cold water pipe, then some pipe dope or teflon tape for the
threads & you're back in business.