Nothing like having a plumbing issue when you’re in the middle of another renovation!! That’s what happened to us during the slider delay while we figured out the weather stripping issue. We noticed that our hot water was acting funny and after further investigation it became clear our hot water heater had a leak, and lucky for us it didn’t burst!! We knew it would need to be replaced eventually but weren’t exactly planning on doing it during the middle of the slider project. Here’s the old hot water heater, very lovely.
And here is where the new one was going to go after we got the old one out.
There were a lot of plumbing steps (remove the old pipes, dry fit everything, clean and sanding the copper incredibly well so the soldering adheres, then put flux on the joints, then solder the joints… I think that’s it) and here is a shot of the new pipes and valve Mace installed.
He also used sharkbite hot water heater connectors to attach to the new tank.
Mace was very excited to use his blow torch but more so about the fact his plumbing work was a successful install and worked properly!! This guy loves a challenge so why stop there!
Since we already had the plumbing tools out might as well repair the hot water line we took out when we removed the dining room heater. First up was draining the system.
Then we had to remove the old pipes which were pretty difficult to get to.
Here are the various plumbing tools that were getting used during this project (he loves to add to his collection!).
Here’s cleaning, dry fitting, and installing a new angle for the pipe.
Then a small connection piece need to be cut so we could connect another angle piece.
And here’s the prepped and dry fitted joint!
A duplicate one was also needed on the other side before we could complete the connection. Let me also say there was a lot of planning that went in to this project because we had to maintain the loop in the proper direction and pipe slopes so it would function properly (I was there for moral support during that phase!).
Now we were ready to start soldering the connections! After a few joints he was able to improve his technique.
Here’s the entire new connection and now that’s it’s winter time and the heat is on I can report the system works so another successful install! We will have to change this plumbing in the future when we put heaters back in the dining room but we won’t do that until we address the kitchen. These 2 projects were completed the same day and probably took 9-10 hours.
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