I haven’t had any hot water mentioning since I ‘fixed’ the bypass last night. It was as if I had a tap open somewhere and the cold and hot were mixing. The obvious cause of the problem came to me as I went to bed, but I was not going to test my theory when I was ready to pass out from exhaustion.

This morning, I reexamined the valve that I had cut out and my suspicion was pretty much confirmed, but I still wanted one more piece of evidence. I really wished that I had a water bypass installation diagram to confirm it before I took anything apart. Guess what I found way at the back of my water heater cabinet, located in such a way that I was only able to read it by shoving my camera down the side of the cabinet and blindly snapping pictures until I got a clear one? I really want to have Words with the guy who installed my water heater!

All right. You’ve had a moment to study the diagram and you can see my problem, right?

The bypass valve I cut out had to be closed for me to have hot water. The tube I installed is open. So I need to remove the tube and find a way to cap the two ends. Copper caps are obviously not going to work here because of the grey conduit over top. So it looks like I need some sort of plastic or rubber cap with plumbing glue. I have the valve I cut off with some of the grey conduit sticking out, so I can bring that to all the different home stores until I find something suitable. But I’m really not due to go back to town any time soon, so it’s no hot water for me for a bit. 🙁

I did have the thought that I could somehow clamp the hose as a temporary fix, but it is very rigid, so I don’t think that’s going to work. I am going to pull out some clamps later and try this anyway.