Typically at the top of the tank is the cold water inlet, coming from your house main water pipe. You may have a Whole House Water Filtration System, or a Water Softener, located before your water heaters cold water inlet. The inlet pipe is required by plumbing code to have a working shut-off valve close by.

What is a water heater inlet?

During normal operation, your cold water inlet allows incoming cold water from your homes main water line to enter your water heater. Once the cold water is heated, your hot water outlet feeds the hot water into your home. The inlet/outlet connections can eventually go bad or become loose and cause a leak.

Which line is cold on a water heater?

I just had a plumber install a new 50 gallon water heater, but the cold water pipe is installed to the hot side (the left pipe when facing the front of the heater) and the hot water pipe is installed to the cold side (the right pipe when facing the front of the heater).

What are the connections on a water heater?

Four pipe connections: a range boiler typically has four pipe connections: two circulating water through the heatin boiler heat exchanger or a side-arm coil to heat the water in the tank and a cold water inlet from the building water supply along with a hot water outlet supplying building water fixtures.

Can you run water without a water heater?

The force of gravity delivers the water to residents, but during an outage, the water supply is limited to the amount in the tank and could run out during a lengthy outage. As long as there is still water, your sinks, non-pressure-assisted toilets and tank-style water heaters should still work.