In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 25 Sep 2019 11:46:16 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Now, if you are replacing with a different brand and the connections
don't line up - - - - - - well it can turn into an all day job in a
hurry - - - - - - .



This replacement is going to take a little while. About 2 feet over the
heater is copper pipe. From there it goes to pvc or cpvc. Every thing
is glued in, no unions or cut off valves for the heater. I am sure the
heater will be a different brand.

When I replaced my WH the first time, I managed to find the same brand,
AOSmith, just by looking in the phone book.

But after that I couldn't and I went to a bunch of places to find one
that was the same, even under a different brand. Mostly all I did is
measure the distance between intake and output pipes. Ended up at
Sears, where the distance was the same.

This is all because I didn't want a funny looking zigzag pipe going up
from the WH and they didn't make or I didnt' want flexible pipe. But
I'm glad I wwent to the trouble because it looked nice. IIRC sears is
gone and I dont' know where I'll get the next WH.

But Sears had one with the very same dimensions, pipe locations and the
controls in front seem the same.

It was easy enough to put it on the rear seat and trunk of my
convertible, with some cotton clothes line holding it in place.

Easy enough to rock it down the stairs one step at a time.

Someone harder to connect the pipes, because I'm so compulsive, I only
left a quarter inch of empty space beween the stubs of the pipes
attached to the ceiling and stubs of the pipes that screw into the WH.

I finally incrased that to about an inch.

It turns out therare TWO KINDS OF JUNCTIONS FOR COPPER PIPE. One has
dimples inside so that the sleeve goes over the pipe only half the
length of the junction, an inch or so I didn't know there were two
kinds so that's what I bought and then I spend a lot of time trying to
file off the dimple so could slide it all the way down, and push it
under the pipe.

BUT THE OTHER KIND has no dimple. You put it on the stump that goes
into the WH, slide it all the way down, then move the WH to under the
matching pipe. Then lift the junction and somehow hold it in place --
maybe that was easy? -- at the right spot and solder it in place.


Years ago at another house I replaced a gas heater. Not much to it.
Easy to get to and some valves. I used two pieces of some copper pipe
that is corragated ( whatever you call it) to make it flexable to do the
water connections. Much younger and broke then.

Now much older and I don't mind a reasonable 2 or 3 hundred for labor
just so I don't have to deal with the headach. It may go smooth ,or it
may require 2 or 3 trips for me to pick up parts from the store 10 miles
away. Hopefully the plumber will have the needed parts on his truck.