Anyone know why I would have 2 pipes going into the cold side of my hot water heater?
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Plumbing – 2 pipes going into the cold side of the water heater
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Related Solutions
Yes, reversing them would be a bad thing. The cold water should be entering the bottom of the tank, the hot output at the top:
I'd insist that the plumber fix this. But if they won't, I'd suggest picking up a pipe cutter, some sharkbite connectors, and just fix it yourself. Shouldn't take more than a half hour to do so.
Depending on the specific system installation and type of tank it could be any of these:
Cold in, hot out, and overflow: Standard water heater.
Cold in, hot out, recirculate in. This configuration has diverse uses:
- typical for a solar water heating booster.
- In heavy use applications, it could be for an external hot water reservoir.
- In long lines applications, this could be for recirculating hot water so that a faucet 400 feet away has hot water available just a few feet away. Many motels and hotels are plumbed this way.
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Best Answer
It might be for a hot water recirculation system with a dedicated return line. Cold water would come from the cold water supply, while somewhat cooled off water would return to the heater from the recirculation loop on the hot water supply, after having been pumped from the hot supply to the furthest fixture on the loop.