Hot Water Heater pipe connections
My 18 year old 50-gallon hot water has 5 pipes connected to it:
Pipes 1-3 below come out of the cinderblock wall on the "cold"
(inlet) side of the hot water heater
1. 3/4" cold water supply pipe (input) with a shutoff valve
2. 1/2" pipe (adjacent to the supply line) that connects to the
Supply line between the supply line shutoff valve and the
Hot water heater inlet on the tank
3. 3/4" pipe from the P/T relief valve to the outside drain pipe
Pipes 4-5 below come out of the cinder block wall on the "hot"
(outlet) side of the hot water heater
4. 1/2" pipe from hot water heater outlet pipe
5. 1/2" pipe from P/T relief valve
Question 1: Cutting pipe 2 produced no water flow, and it is
downstream of the S/O valve so it apparently acts as some
kind of bypass??? for the supply cold water when the tank is full?
Question 2: after cutting pipe 5 I tried pouring water into it to see
if it was connected to the outside drain. This action quickly filled
the pipe and it did not drain...
My Heat Pump is adjacent to two capped copper pipes. I vaguely
recall "waste heat" from older heat pumps was used to assist in
Heating hot water, but this isn't done any longer.
Does pipe 5 have something to do with heat from the Heat pump?
Thanks for any thoughts!
Tom