On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:16:47 -0500, BETA-33 wrote:

To be safer, when you leave the house, you can turn off the main water valve
to the house, or if you know where the cold water feeds into the top of the
hot water heater, you could just turn that valve off.

It is definately not-hot water (i,e., cool) leaking at the bottom of the
tank. I'll snap a photo and show you. The top has the two pipes coming in,
one is cold; the other is hot. It's working.

It is a good idea to shut off the water coming in (that limits my risk to
40 gallons max); but you didn't state whether I should turn off the gas
also.

I suspect that I must - but can you confirm that the gas goes off with the
water inlet getting shut off?

Donna