On 6/18/2010 10:21 AM, Joe J wrote:
We bought a used gas dryer and it came with a flex gas line. Hooked
everything up and we smelled gas. Called the gas company and they came
out and identified the problem as a leak in middle of the flex line.
While there, he had his sniffer out and said we had a slight leak on the
water heater gas supply line. He put some wrap on it and said it would
be fine until it was tightened up.
I'm stumped how to do that. ½ black pipe runs down to a T and the leak
is in the center of the T that supplies gas to the water heater. There
is a shutoff and union in the line. Other side of the T drops down with
a 3" nipple and is capped. There is about a 6" run from the center of
the T to the water heater.
If I open the union and begin to tighten the line into the T, at the
same time I'm tightening at the T, I'll be loosening the line that runs
to the water heater. If I try and rotate the T, I'll be rotating it away
from the supply line and it won't reconnect, unless I managed to get 1
full turn more.
The gas company guy said it just needed tightening. I'm thinking that
actually means I need to completely disassemble this from the union
down, clean all the parts up and start over with new pipe dope and
reassemble from the heater back to the union. Or am I missing an easy fix?



That IS the easy fix. The hard one would be if you had no union.

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email