How to Install a Loop in a Water Heater

Design

• 1

  Draw out a simple floor plan and indicate all the locations requiring hot water. Include the location of the hot water heater on the floor plan.

• 2

  Ensure the hot water line is above the hot water heater on the plan.

• 3

  Include a line from the last faucet to receive hot water directly back to the cold feed line for the hot water heater tank. This is a closed loop circulation line dedicated for hot water only. It feeds directly into the cold line as it goes into the hot water tank.

Installation

• 4

  Cut the copper pipe to the size needed with the tubing cutter for the pipe leaving the effluent side of the hot water heater. Attach the tubing cutter to the pipe at the desired cutting location, tighten it and then turn it to cut.

• 5

  Remove the burrs with the blade at the back of the tubing cutter by spinning it inside the mouth of the copper pipe just cut. Clean the pipe inside and out with the combination brush to ready it for sweating. Wipe residue from the pipe with a clean rag.

• 6

  Brush flux on the abraded surfaces of the pipe and insert the pipe into the joint. Heat the pipe with the propane torch or MAPP gas. When the flux begins to smoke and sizzle, add the solder after moving the flame away from the pipe. Touch the solder to the joint and watch as it melts and wicks into the joint. Move the solder 360 degrees around the seam of the joint to ensure the solder pulls into the joint seam and seals.

• 7

  Add flux around the joint and wipe clean after soldering.

• 8

  Add a check valve just after the hot water heater and sweat it as in Step 3. Ensure the check valve is oriented correctly to allow the water flow in the correct direction -- toward the faucets needing hot water. This prevents backflow into the hot water heater.

• 9

  Sweat in copper "Ts" in the locations where you will stub out for hot water at the various hot water faucet locations. Install the stub out appropriately using the same copper pipe sweating techniques. Sweat a piece of copper pipe up to the hot water valve location, add a sweated copper elbow and then a copper cap to seal the pipe until adding the shut off and supply valves at a later time.

• 10

  Continue sweating the pipe to all locations and then return a line back to the cold-water input to the hot water heater. Install the copper pipe approximately six inches in front of where the cold water goes into the hot water heater for heating. Just before you reach the cold water line, sweat in another check valve to ensure the water flows one way only.

• 11

  Pressurize the system to test for leaks. Re-sweat any joints that leak.