Shut off on water heater

[Ludington]

Thinking about replacing my water heater, which got me thinking about shut off valves.
It's code to have one on the cold input side, but should you have one on the hot out also ?
I need to replace my current one with a ball type. Suggestion on which one to get ?
I would probably get one like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/The-Plu...Brass-Full-Port-Ball-Valve-822256MF/312502014

 

[Geofd]

That's not the one you would useyou would solder one in the cold before the hot water heater

 

[breplum]

We put an extra valve on hot side based on factors like ease of swapping out or if work will be undertaken in foreseeable future.
We generally always add one on the hot side. Broadly, we stick with plumbing supply house main brands, but that HD sourced valve looks like it is a reasonable product.

 

[Ludington]

We put an extra valve on hot side based on factors like ease of swapping out or if work will be undertaken in foreseeable future.
We generally always add one on the hot side. Broadly, we stick with plumbing supply house main brands, but that HD sourced valve looks like it is a reasonable product.

That was just one I picked out at random that looked right.

 

[tomt30960]

We also in addiction to ball valves on both inlet and outlet, add di-electric unions primarily to speed up change-outs in places where tanks are only lasting a couple of years due extremely poor water quality. It is not unusual for us to see up to a 1/2 dozen tanks fail at approximately the same time in apartment buildings and this is the same across different brands of tanks. The culprit is the water.

 

[Twowaxhack]

I never install a valve on the hot side for residential water heaters.

The only benefit I could see is if you had a single handle cartridge leaking a little causing a crossover into the hot or you had a lot of water piping above your water heater that could drain back on you during a swap out.

We don’t have basements so the lowest hot outlet is rarely the water heater. I just open a hot faucet lower than my water heater and the residual drains there.

 

[Ludington]

We also in addiction to ball valves on both inlet and outlet, add di-electric unions primarily to speed up change-outs in places where tanks are only lasting a couple of years due extremely poor water quality. It is not unusual for us to see up to a 1/2 dozen tanks fail at approximately the same time in apartment buildings and this is the same across different brands of tanks. The culprit is the water.

I must have good water for my tank to have lasted as long as it has. Just looked it up to be sure..bought in 2000 from lowes 298.00, 50 gallon maytag. Still working, but top element is starting to sing when it's heating. To bad I can't just get new elements.....( never flushed , annode never changed)

 

[Ludington]

I never install a valve on the hot side for residential water heaters.

The only benefit I could see is if you had a single handle cartridge leaking a little causing a crossover into the hot or you had a lot of water piping above your water heater that could drain back on you during a swap out.

We don’t have basements so the lowest hot outlet is rarely the water heater. I just open a hot faucet lower than my water heater and the residual drains there.

Nope, I'm in a basement, lowest spot. I might have a faucet doing a crossover. When I changed out the shutoff valves in my kitchen sink. I closed the hot valve on the tank, opened all the hot faucets, tub faucet... but still had water comming out of the sink supply. Any easy way to tell which faucet is doing it ?
.

 

[Twowaxhack]

I must have good water for my tank to have lasted as long as it has. Just looked it up to be sure..bought in 2000 from lowes 298.00, 50 gallon maytag. Still working, but top element is starting to sing when it's heating. To bad I can't just get new elements.....( never flushed , annode never changed)

Why can’t you change the elements ? A noisy element really isn’t a problem unless it bothers you.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Nope, I'm in a basement, lowest spot. I might have a faucet doing a crossover. When I changed out the shutoff valves in my kitchen sink. I closed the hot valve on the tank, opened all the hot faucets, tub faucet... but still had water comming out of the sink supply. Any easy way to tell which faucet is doing it ?
.

Not really, but a valve on the hot side wouldn’t stop a crossover at a single lever cartridge for other work on the piping system except at the water heater.

 

[Ludington]

Why can’t you change the elements ? A noisy element really isn’t a problem unless it bothers you.

Discontinued, no replacement to be had, even off brand. It has a special element, seems like it's reverse threaded. I've searched before. It 4as 1 3/8 threads. Part number is 66001002. Maytag he2x 50t. Maybe you can find them..... I sure couldn't. I had the thermostat go bad, and ended up finding one on ebay.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Discontinued, no replacement to be had, even off brand. It has a special element, seems like it's reverse threaded. I've searched before. It 4as 1 3/8 threads. Part number is 66001002. Maytag he2x 50t. Maybe you can find them..... I sure couldn't. I had the thermostat go bad, and ended up finding one on ebay.

Nope, if they’re not readily available and the tank is old there’s no point looking.

I could have some adapters made Friend of mine just bought $500K worth of CNC machines. But all jokes aside, it’s time to get rid of it.

 

[Ludington]

I agree, wife says... keep it till it dies. But she will be the one complaing there is no hot water until I get it fixed.

 

[Twowaxhack]

If the top element dies you could rewire it to operate the bottom element until you can replace it.

 

[Ludington]

That's an idea for sure