[rjniles]

Helped a friend replace a water heater today. Located in a utility room under a raised beach house. Water heater is a 50 gallon low boy on a shelf raised about 4" above the floor. Connections about a foot below the ceiling. Cut the electric off, closed the gate valve and drained the heater. Cut the hot and cold connections off with a saws-all. T&P plumbing went back into the plywood covered wall, hit it with the saws-all. Water came out under full main pressure. Quickly shut off the supply to the house, no damage done. Finished removing the tank and opened the wall to investigate. The T&P drain was hard plumbed back into the cold water side.:furious:

Has anyone ever heard of such a configuration and what could be the possible reason to do this?

Installed the new tank and plumbed the T&P down to the floor. Capped the old pipe to the cold supply.

 

[rjniles]

Further info on this:

This was not done by some hack DIY. There was a label on the tank of the plumbing company that did the work 17 years ago. And you could tell that no changes had been made since then. Called the tel #, apparently no longer in business - wonder why?.