Where to cut a cramped water heater cold line?
Tight clearance behind the water heater and connections close to the ground prevent pulling the unit out more than six inches from the wall. This leaves no obvious place to cut the cold water line while retaining enough pipe length to make a new connection.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1removing the pipe assembly further back from the tee
- 2cutting downstream of the ball valve
- 3rebuilding the entire piping layout after the valve
- 4Cutting open the wall for access
- 5Sliding the top forward to pop it off and reveal connections
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“what the heck do I need to do here with this cold line?”source ↗
“I couldn't get a good picture behind the heater. The connections are down close to the ground same with the power supply. I can't pull it out very far from the wall. Only about 6".”source ↗
“for the one picture, I just don't understand WHERE to cut the cold line to make it have enough pipe for to connect to.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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