Union (fitting) required?

I certainly do not know anything about your local codes, but as for unions: they are intended to make future maintenance easier. In theory, a pipe that is connected to another with a union can be taken apart and put back together with a pipe wrench. I have installed water heaters both ways. The only time the unions came in handy was when were rebuilding our 1884 Victorian and had to relocate the plumbing (several times).

As for outside faucets in a cold climate, union joints could make it easier to replace something in the event that a sudden freeze came a long and the outside water had not been shut off and drained.

Just thoughts from someone who hates plumbing. :-)

____________________ Bill Waller New Eagle, PA

snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net

No.

The best reason for a union at a water heater is that it makes it easier for the water heater to be removed or replaced. I used about 1 foot long flexible pipes, sold as a water heater hookup kit, for myself, it made installation a snap.

A friend soldered together the pipes to/from his water heater, a real task, and one he will have to repeat if he gets a new heater, which has different pipe spacing.

Another reason for a union is to join dissimilar pipe, like copper and iron, then you need a di-electric union which isolates the pipes electrically from each other, to prevent galvanic corrosion. You need to jump around the union with wire, to insure electrical continuity.

Use the frost free outdoor faucets, that have the valve part way back, where it is enclosed in the insulation, which you have to repack in after installing the faucet.

They would be required any time there is a possible need to take the pipe apart in the future. Unions are no less reliable than any other threaded pipe connection, of which there are millions in the world, that don't leak.

Seems you don't like unions. Loosening a union nut sure beats having to cut tubing/pipe or piece-by-piece disassembly to replace stuff like heaters.

Last year I had to cut out my leaking water-heater. There's a sweat-union in both lines now, you can be sure, with a shut-off physically above each.

There are all sorts of unions, which indicates to me that there are many uses for them. The only reason I can think of why you might avoid using union(s) is that they cost more than same length of tube/pipe.

They strike me as extremely reliable, desirable fittings to civilize pipework. Line up the halves, sock down the nut, done. Couldn't be much simpler- just gotta have the piping done so the union halves are oriented properly.

John

Not required as far as I know. A Union may not make the job easier either. It will need to be soldered on each end anyway. The, soldered on, union half most likely would not facilitate replacing the outside valve any easier - which is their purpose. I would, and do, leave them out of the equation for outside faucets. I do use shut-off valves with a drain in addition to a frost free sill c*ck. Lets me drain the water away from the valve just in case.

No, you don't have to use union anywhere on copper water pipe.

A day after I put my water heater in 2 years ago I read the instructions. (Better late than never) Not using unions voids the warranty because the heat of a sweat fitting can damage the plastic lining on the pipes going into the heater. Doesn't seem to have done mine any harm though.

It is probably also easier, as the other guys said.

And if you do that jumping around thing you will completely negate the benefit of putting a dielectric union in there and have just wasted money and time on it. Dielectric unions only prevent corrosion where the dissimilar metal pipes join if there is NO other low resistance electrical path connecting the pipes to complete the circuit for the galvanic current.

There are some "galvanic isolators" which provide the electrical equivalent of six inches or more of "plastic pipe" jointing the two dissimilar pipes. These aren't perfect, but they do help even if the two pipes are electrically connected together because they create a longer water path between the two dissimilar metals, and since typical household water is far from being a low resistance conductor, the galvanic current flow is reduced by the longer water path's resistance and "deplates" the less noble metal slower.

At least that's the way I learned it from Grandma...

Jeff

Thanks to all who replied, and especially for the pointers to frost free sillcocks, which I had not heard of before.

I still don't like unions, though. Do a quick search for "leaking union", and you'll see that I'm not alone ....