Thought I'd share this near calamity. Came home one night to hear a beeping sound in my 2nd floor attic. It was the water alarm in my water heater's pan. The Floodstop tripped and the supply water supply to both of the heaters was turned off. Lucky for me as it looked like my 11.5 year old Bradford-White 50G gas heater was about to blow. I had planned to replace them at the 12 year mark. Now I plan on replacing them in 8-10 years max.

Please see pics located here:

[onedrive.live.com]

Also, this is the first time using Brasscraft copper flex line, the old WHs were hard piped. I have a couple of questions should anyone have answers!:

1. What caused that black crap on the cold water inlet?

2. Of the 4 flex hoses I used, on two of them I could not get a nice radius on the bends. Looking at the pics (the first 4 pics are the same pipe but different angles) do you see any issues? I don't think the water flow is impeded at all but of course worry about pipe failure later in life. I'm thinking that all is fine but wanted to get any opinions by those who use these all the time.

? lack of a dielectric connection ?

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

That's what I was thinking, no dielectric caused the issue. Well that should be solved since the Brasscraft Copper Flex hoses have an integrated dielectric union.